The Crescent

Our investigation up to this point covers five primary images of the Saturnian configuration: the enclosed sun

, the sun-cross             , the enclosed sun-cross , the enclosed sun and pillar  , and the enclosed sun-

cross and pillar . I have contended that these symbols realistically depict Saturn’s  actual  appearance  to  the  terrestrial observers.

Of course, one faces a special difficult in attempting to prove that the sacred signs denoted a visible apparition. One can show that a coherent, global symbolism developed around the cosmic image  ; but how can one really prove that this configuration was more than the invention of an ancient cult—perhaps the extraordinary product of an advanced race whose abstract unification of discordant cosmic powers gained world-wide distribution?

There is a specific category of evidence, I believe, which removes any possible appeal to abstractions. I refer to the symbolism of the crescent  . In the detailed sources left us by the oldest civilizations the symbolic crescent—which all men automatically identify with our moon—plays a vastly greater role than generally perceived. But in none of the primary sources can one actually identify the crescent with the body we call “moon” today!

If there was any single turning point in my inquiry it was the realization that the crescent with which ancient ritual deals is inseparable from the band of the enclosed sun . The key is the image (or the simplified ) showing the crescent as the lower half of the band.

It was this connection—occurring in both Egypt and Mesopotamia—that convinced me of the band’s reality and led me to explore more deeply its various mythical formulations.

The crescent in the sign suggests that Saturn’s band received illumination from the solar orb in such a way as to present terrestrial observers with two semicircles of light and shadow.

The concept of a half-illuminated band immediately places in a new perspective the universal image : is it possible that the famous sun-in-crescent represented not a contrived “conjunction” of the solar orb and new moon (the conventional explanation), but rather the primeval sun Saturn resting over the illuminated portion of his polar enclosure? Certainly the overlapping  images    and   imply that the enclosed sun and sun-in-crescent pertain to a single astral configuration.

When O’Neill claimed that the sign  symbolized the celestial pole, he took the sign as a kind of metaphor—an ancient means of representing the revolution of the circumpolar stars around a fixed centre. Others have identified the band as the illusory atmospheric halo which occasionally surrounds the solar orb, while still others explain the band as an abstract “circle of the sky.” But the connection of the band with a crescent would suggest a more tangible character.

As a test of this possibility several questions require examination:

• Is Saturn, the primeval sun, associated with a crescent?
• Is there a consistent connection of the crescent and the band of the enclosed sun ?

-   Is the crescent equated with the circle of the mother goddess?

• Does the Holy Land or celestial earth rest within the embrace of the crescent?
• Does a crescent occupy the summit of the cosmic mountain?

The Crescent and Saturn

 

It is well known that in classical mythology Saturn (or Kronos) wields a curved harpe or sickle by which he establishes his primeval rule, and most authorities would concur with Kerenyi in identifying the sickle as the “image of the new moon”1192  But why should Saturn possess the “new moon” as his weapon?

The connection appears to be very old, for it occurs also in ancient Babylonia. Ninurta, the planet Saturn, hold in his hands a weapon called SAR-UR-U-SAR-GAZ, and also BAB-BA-NU-IL-LA. The first name of Ninurta’s weapon means “who governs the Cosmos and who massacres the Cosmos,” while the second name means “hurricane which spares nothing.”

The astonishing fact is this: these names of Saturn’s weapon are the very epithets of the Babylonian Sin, the crescent “Moon.”1193 That is, the crescent of Sin is the “weapon” (sickle, sword) with which Saturn founded and destroyed the primeval order.

But there is another peculiarity also: though always identified by scholars as the lunar sphere, Sin is never presented as a “half-moon,” “three quarters moon” or “full moon.” He is simply Udsar “the crescent.” And however incongruous the relationship might appear today, Babylonian art continually presents Sin as the lower half of the enclosed sun-cross 

 

46. Various Mesopotamian versions of the sun-in-crescent.

Did this relationship of the Sin-crescent to Saturn and his enclosure originate in a haphazard combination of once independent symbols—or in a fundamental equation? The connection between Sin and Anu (the planet Saturn) amounts to an “identity,” according to Jensen.1194 Rawlinson says the same thing: the Babylonians regarded Sin—the crescent—as an aspect of the planet Saturn.1195 Jeremias states the equation unequivocally: Sin = Saturn.1196

When one considers the relationship of the Sin-crescent to the sign , the nature of the identity becomes clear. The Sin-crescent is part of the circular dwelling or “body” of Saturn. Thus the texts invoke Sin as the protective rampart of the Cosmos—a “high defensive wall,”1197  or a:

Golden sanctuary, which in the land is magnificent! Luminous sanctuary which in the land is elevated!1198

As Saturn’s emanation, Sin is synonymous with the great god’s circle of “glory” (halo); and this fact gives stunning significance to what must otherwise be regarded as a purely esoteric statement of Assyro-Babylonian astronomical texts: “Saturn stands in the halo of Sin,” the texts proclaim (not once but several times).1199  Crescent and enclosure are one.

Do not these evidences strongly suggest that the ancients perceived a literal band around Saturn and that this Saturnian dwelling or “halo” displayed a crescent?

Another piece of evidence is noteworthy. The Babylonians represented the circle of Saturn’s Cosmos (the circle of the gods) by the sign . If my contention is correct, the crescent of Sin was simply the brightly illuminated half of this circle (assembly). So it is of no small significance that Babylonian symbolism also represented the

 

 

assembly by the sign            . Needless to say, the heavens familiar to us today offer no conceivable source of the image.

 

47. Sun-in-crescent, on the Ur-Nammu stele from

 

48. Hawaiian cross design showing alternate positions of the crescent around the central sun

 

49. American Indian mounds, conveying the image of the revolving

Such identities point emphatically to an underlying relation of the ancient signs and . While the former depicts the entire Saturnian enclosure, the latter portrays only the brightly illuminated portion of the band—so that one might appropriately speak of Saturn’s “crescent-enclosure” and schematically render the idea this way : .

It should be stressed, however, that the common location of the crescent beneath the central sun  is not its only placement in ancient symbolism. At times the crescent appears to stand on end or ), while at other times   it is inverted above the sun . Of course, this is exactly what we should expect—for if the crescent was the illuminated portion of a circumpolar band then that crescent must have appeared to revolve around the band with every full rotation of our planet upon its axis. One could thus render the daily rotation of the crescent schematically: .

 

As we shall see, there is a distinctive relationship of this revolving crescent to the phases of the archaic “day” and “ night”—as well as to many other aspects of ancient cosmography. But let us take the present line of inquiry a little further. Does the equation of the crescent and enclosure occur also in Egypt? The Egyptians (as previously observed) called the enclosure Aten, recorded by the hieroglyph . (In the course of time this symbol evolved into the simplified form , with the enclosed sun dropped out) It is the latter form that generally prevails in later Egyptian art.)

In numerous representations of the Aten a crescent forms the lower half of the enclosure. In fig 52, I offer an imposing  example from the tomb of Ramesses VI, showing the Aten resting within a crescent and flanked by four male figures, two right and two left.

 

50.  The Egyptian crescent-enclosure.

The hieroglyphic form of the crescent-enclosure is    , a form which progressively developed into the images

,            ,               ,           ,  as  the  artists  gradually  expanded  and  flattened  the  crescent  into    a  larger receptacle supporting the enclosure.

This image of the Aten and crescent seems to have generated great confusion among Egyptologists. One of the gods associated with the crescent-enclosure is Khensu, whom all authorities identify as the moon. But the god’s image remains enigmatic, for Budge writes: “He wears on his head the lunar disk in a crescent,  or the solar disk with a uraeus, or the solar disk with the plumes and uraeus.”1200  Did the Egyptians have difficulty deciding whether the god was the sun or the moon?

 

51. Three illustrations of the Egyptian god Khensu, showing the progressive enlargement of the Aten’s crescent by Egyptian

When Budge calls the sign  a “lunar disk in a crescent,” he avoids any association of the sign with the sun. But on the following page he writes of Khensu: “On his head rest the lunar crescent and disk. In this form he represents both the sun at sunrise and the new moon.”1201 Either the Egyptians possessed a remarkable indifference concerning the astral character of their gods, or scholars have misunderstood the symbolism.

By putting aside all a priori verdicts one discerns a root consistency in the Egyptian image of the crescent-enclosure. In Egyptian ritual, the crescent is not the moon but a semi-circle “embracing” the central sun . Very early the Egyptians personified

 

 

the crescent-enclosure as the divinity Ah, Ah, Aah, or Aahu, denoted by the glyph   or , and always  translated “moon.” The word ah, however, also means “to embrace”—a concept devoid of meaning in connection with our moon, but charged with meaning when referred to the band (or the illuminated portion of the band) enclosing the central sun. Ah further signifies  “to  defend  against”  and  “collar.”  That  is,  like  the  Babylonian  “moon”-god  Sin,  the  Egyptian  ah    signifies the defensive rampart protecting the sun-god: and the same crescent-enclosure is worn by the great god as his “collar.” Again, such interrelationships can only appear absurd when considered as aspects of our moon.

 

52.  Ah, god of the crescent-enclosure.

The only “moon” invoked in early Egyptian ritual is that which houses the central sun. Chapter LXV of the Book of the Dead, bearing the title “The Chapter of Coming Forth by Day and of Gaining the Mastery over Enemies,” begins, “Hail (thou) who shinest from the Moon [Ah] and who sendest forth light therefrom.”1202 “In several chapters the sun is spoken of as shining in or from the moon,” notes Renouf.1203

One version of the Coffin Texts reads: “Going forth into the day and living after death. O you Sole One who rises [comes forth] in the moon, O you Sole One who shines in the moon.”1204 The “moon” is the dwelling of the solitary god, and the nature of this dwelling is accurately communicated to us in the ancient signs        and .

Recalling that the Babylonians related the crescent of Sin to the circle of the gods , one wonders whether a similar relationship occurs in Egypt. The Egyptian assembly is the paut—a term which refers at once to the company of gods, the limbs of Osiris or Re, and the grain or bread of heaven. Though the Aten sign  may serve as the determinative of paut, the most common hieroglyph for paut is , the inverted crescent-enclosure!

One thus finds a striking correspondence between the Egyptian and Mesopotamian symbolism of the crescent— a symbolism which takes on coherence only when one sees the crescent as the illuminated half of the polar enclosure . By no extent of rationalization can one accommodate the imagery to the sun and moon familiar  to us today. Indeed the difficulty is recognized by Butterworth in his examination of the sun-in-crescent  .     The crescent “is not the natural luminary of heaven,” writes Butterworth, “for it has its hollow side turned towards the ‘sun.’” 1205 The point is worth emphasizing. The crescent of our moon always faces the solar orb, but in the early symbolism of the sun and crescent such a relationship rarely if ever occurs.No matter what the position of the crescent around the sun ,      , , or    ),   the sun stands within the “embrace” of the crescent, giving rise to what Briffault deems an “astronomically incongruous” image.1206 But the image appears discordant only if we judge it against the present heavens. The primeval sun, states Butterworth, is “contained in the hollow of the recumbent crescent moon. This is the sun that is always in the zenith”1207 (i.e., it is not the body we call “sun” today).

 

53.  Hindu syllable OM, the creative word

 

 

 

The Crescent and Womb

54. Phoenician sun-in-crescent

 

If the crescent revered in antiquity denoted the illuminated half of Saturn’s enclosure, then it must be synonymous with the cosmic womb—the mother goddess.

That numerous goddesses, in later times, came to be associated with our moon is a fact so thoroughly documented that we need not belabor the evidence here. Yet the reasons for this association are by no means clear. “From the beginning,” states G. E. Smith, reviewing the early counterparts of the Egyptian Hathor, “all goddesses—and especially this most primitive stratum of fertility deities—were for obvious reasons intimately associated with the moon.”1208

And what are the “obvious” reasons for the connection of the goddess with the moon? It is, Smith claims, “the cyclical periodicity of the moon which suggested the analogy with the similar physiological periodicity of women . . .” Also, “The influence of the moon upon dew and the tides, perhaps, suggested its controlling power over water and emphasized the life-giving function which its association with women had already suggested.”1209 These reasons are neither obvious nor adequate.

What requires explanation is the crescent-goddesses’ elementary character as a receptacle housing the central sun. That the Egyptian goddess Hathor was represented by a crescent or “lunette” does not alter the fact that her very name means “the dwelling of Horus.” Similarly, Isis, also represented by a crescent, was the temple chamber or throne enclosing Osiris. The Babylonian Ishtar, whose symbol was the crescent, was the “womb” housing the man-child Tammuz. This very aspect of the crescent is explicit in the title of the “moon”-divinity Sin, who is called the “mother womb, begetter of all things.”1210

It can hardly be doubted that the Saturnian crescent eventually became confused with our moon. The confusion is most noticeable in the case of the Greek Selene and Latin Luna, whose names were assigned to the lunar sphere. But neither the names nor the imagery of Selene and Luna originated in connection with our moon. Within the sphere of Luna “Sol is hidden like a fire.” Helios dwells as the impregnating seed within the womb of Selene. 1211 “According to these ancient ideas,” writes Jung, “the moon is a vessel of the sun: she is a universal receptacle of the sun in particular.” 1212 For an explanation of this imagery one must look to the former celestial order. Long before the Greeks named the solar orb Helios, they knew Helios as the planet Saturn—just as Sol primitively signified the same planet. Selene and Luna derive their mythical character from Saturn’s enclosure, and the signs  and offer a literal portrait of the ancient mother goddess.

Crescent and Motherland

There is a further implication: the “moon” must mean the same thing as the created “earth” watered by the four rivers of life. Though it is difficult to imagine a less likely identity in conventional terms, here is Faber’s conclusion concerning the moon and earth in global mythology: “The female divinity, however apparently multiplied according the genius of polytheism, ultimately resolve themselves into one, who is accounted the great universal mother both of gods and men, and this single deity is pronounced to be  alike the Moon in the firmament and the all-productive Earth.”1213

Faber gives far too many examples than can be cited here. In each case the goddess “was astronomically the Moon,” but “her mystic circle is declared to be the circle of the World.”1214 The goddess Isis, reports Faber, “was declared to be equally the moon and the earth: and she is at the same time unanimously determined by the ancient theologists to be one with Ceres,

 

Proserpine, Minerva, Venus, Diane, Juno, Rhea, Cybele, Jana, Atergatis . . . (etc.). These again are said to be mutually the same with each other: and if we descend to particulars, we still find them indifferently identified with the Earth and the Moon.”1215

What might our earth (as perceived by the ancients, not by modern astronomy) have in common with the lunar sphere to promote this seemingly irrational identity? The question is raised by Briffault: “There is not, in fact, an earth-goddess who is not at the same time a moon-goddess. All Earth Mothers, as Bachofen remarked ‘lead a double life, as Earth and as Moon.’”1216 The identity prevails not only in the advanced civilizations but among primitive races also. The Maori identify the “moon” (Hine, or “the Woman”) with the earth. So do Caribbean natives—and this identity corresponds with the overlapping personalities of the “moon” and “earth” among the Mexicans, Chaldaeans, Chinese, Hindu, Greeks, and northern European races.

Briffault confesses the irrationality of the equation: “The Greeks expressly called the moon ‘a heavenly earth’ and ‘a part of the earth.’ That persistent identification of the moon with the earth would be unintelligible in peoples ignorant of modern astronomical conceptions, let alone in uncultured races such as the Caribs and the Polynesians. When the earth is conceived as a huge, solid, immovable surface contrasting in every respect with the wandering sphere or disc of the moon in the heavens, there appears to be no imaginable ground for assimilating the one to the other. The identification cannot arise from any analogy in appearance or function.”1217

Briffault proposes to resolve the dilemma by positing an intimate connection of “the moon and earth with women and their functions.” He suggests that the divinized female came first and her attributes were, through analogy, transferred at once to the moon and the earth.1218 But that such indirect reasoning on the part of ancient man should lead to an identification so universal and so fundamental is not easy to believe.

Actually, no rationalization of this identity is necessary. In the archaic world order, the crescent and earth (land, province) were identical. The circle of the “moon” (crescent-enclosure) was the island of beginnings—Saturn’s Earth. The mythical “moon,” as Faber observes, was “what some call ‘a terrestrial heaven’ or ‘paradise,’ and others a ‘heavenly earth’ . . . it is described  as wearing the semblance of a floating island . . .”1219 This “island of the Moon” contained “within its sphere the Elysian fields or Paradise,” which came to be known as “the paradise of the moon.”

There exists, in fact, a most appropriate Mesopotamian symbol of this paradise, though it has yet to receive the serious attention of the experts. It is the sign  , repeated again and again on Mesopotamian cylinder seals. The sign depicts the quartered earth, the celestial “land of the four rivers.” That this paradisal earth lies within the embrace of a vast crescent may appear foolish to modern critics, but is strictly consistent with numerous independent traditions equating the primeval “earth” and “moon.”1220

The Crescent and Mount

In all ancient myths of the lost paradise, the land of peace and plenty rests upon a cosmic pillar —“earth’s highest mountain.” One of the peculiarities of the Mount is that it possesses two peaks, rising to the right and left of the central column.

The Egyptian Mount of Glory (Khut) reveals two peaks between which rests the Aten or enclosed sun . Depicted by this sign are “the two great mountains on which Re appears.”1221 And what is most interesting about the Egyptian  symbol of the cleft peak  is that it finds strikingly similar parallels in other lands. The Mesopotamian sun- god rests upon a twin-peaked world mountain of identical form (fig. 60), and the same dual mount occurs also in Mexico—here too revealing the sun-god between the two peaks (fig. 61).

 

60.   Assyro-Babylonian Shamash standing between the two peaks

 

61. (a) Mexican twin peaks, with central staff; (b) Central sun between two peaks

The Delaware Indians recall a primeval land—“the Talega country,” where long ago “all kept peace with each other.” The pictograph of the lost land is  an extraordinary counterpart to the Egyptian Mount of Glory .

In Hebrew and Muslim thought “the mountain of paradise is a double one,” observes Wensinck.1222 To the Hebrews Sinai, Horeb, Ebol, and Gerezim were all conceived as images of a twin-peaked mountain, states Jeremias.1223 In the primeval Tyre (paradise), according to the description of Nonnus, a “double rock” rises from the ocean. In its centre is  an olive (the central sun) which automatically emits fire, setting it in a perpetual blaze. 1224 The Syrian and Hittite great gods stand equally balanced upon two mountains.1225 In the beginning, according to a central Asiatic legend related  by Uno Holmberg, “there was only water, from which the two great mountains emerged.”1226 From the central mount of Hindu cosmology rise two secondary peaks to the right and left.1227 Of course, the twin pillars of Hercules point to the same idea.

The ancient concept of a cleft summit left a deep imprint in ancient architecture, according to Vincent Scully, author of the book The Earth, the Temple and the Gods. In Crete, “a clearly defined pattern of landscape use can be recognized at every palace site,” Scully writes. “More than this, each palace makes use, as far as possible, of the same landscape elements. These  are as follows: first, an enclosed valley of varying size in which the palace is set; I should like to call this the ‘Natural Megaron’; second, a gently mounded or conical hill in axis with the palace to north or south, and lastly a higher, double-peaked or cleft mountain some distance beyond the hill but on the same axis. The mountain may have other characteristics of great sculptural force . . . but the double peaks or notched cleft seem essential to it . . . It forms in all cases a climactic shape which has the quality of causing the observer’s eye to come to rest in its cup . . . All the landscape elements listed above are present at Knossos, Phaistos, Mallia, and Gournia, and in each case they themselves—and this point must be stressed—are the basic architecture of the palace complex.1228

 

The same pattern occurs repeatedly throughout Greece and Asia Minor, according to Scully. A good example is the siting of the citadel of Troy, which looks out across the isle of Imbross to the more distant isle of Samothrace from which rises (directly “beyond the long low mound of Imbross”) the “double peaks” of Phengari.1229

In what ritual notion did this common architectural requirement originate? The name of Samothrace’s sacred mountain offers a vital clue: Phengari is the “Mountain of the Moon.” The title is not incidental, for the “Mountain of the Moon”—in more than one land—is the very title of the Primeval Hill, the pillar of the Cosmos! Thus, the “White Island” of Hindu myth is distinguished by the presence of a primordial mountain rising to the “moon.” Mount Ararat, which Faber connects with the paradisal hill, is denominated Laban, “the mountain of the Moon.” So too does the crescent moon rest on the summit of the Hindu Meru. Faber writes: “At the head of the Nile, according to the Indian geographers, is the Meru of the southern hemisphere: this is also a mountain of the Moon . . . At the source of the Rhine, the Rhone, the Po and the Danube, all of which were holy rivers, is what may be styled ‘the Meru of the west’: here again we have a mountain of the Moon, for Alpan is but a variation of Laban, and Jura or Ira or Rhe denotes ‘the Moon’ equally in the Celtic and the Babylonian dialects. Lebanon, at the head of the sacred river Jordan, was another lunar mountain . . . And even in the island of Borneo, the peak at the head of its largest river is known by the title of ‘the mountain of the Moon.’“1230

An early prototype of such mountains, Faber contends, is the vast summit of the Himalaya, from which the Ganges flows. The Hindus deemed this towering mass Chandrasichara, the “mountain of the Moon,” while two small hillocks of this lofty region receive the title Somagiri, the “Mountains of the Moon.”1231

At work is the cosmic image of a crescent moon resting upon a great mountain and thereby forming a cleft summit. “ . . . The figure presented to their imagination, would be a conical peak terminating in two points formed by the two horns of the  crescent.”1232   Consistent  with  the  universal  sun-in-crescent  , the great father himself stands midway between the peaks of the right and left, states Faber.1233

One thus derives the images and as the simplest renderings of the “Mountain of the Crescent.” Every student of ancient symbolism, of course, will recognize these as images of global distribution, presented in an infinite number of variations.

 

62.   Babylonian pillared crescents

 

63. Sabaean altar, with pillared sun-in-crescent.

 

64. Hittite crescent-enclosure on support

 

65. Pillared crescent, from Peru

Surely one cannot ignore this general symbolism of the cosmic mountain in attempting to understand the common  mountain  image  . This pictograph, I suggest, simply adapts the primal crescent to its mythical interpretation as two peaks. Which is to say, the Egyptian  (or the later ) refers to the same cosmic form as the crescent enclosure . In fact, Budge says as much when he calls the latter sign an image of “the sun at sunrise”— for this is precisely the purported meaning of the sign  . (I shall subsequently show that by picturing the crescent below the central sun        as opposed to the alternative positions ,      ,  the ancients denoted the archaic “day,” the period of Saturn’s greatest brilliance.)

That the two peaks of the Egyptian  Khut   signified the cleft summit of a single mountain is forcefully indicated by the “mountain-sceptre” of Re, showing the dual mount as the top of a single column . As observed by many authorities, the sceptre represented the pillar of heaven. This particular form closely parallels the early  “mountain” hieroglyph  , which  passed into the image  , identifying the cleft peak with the solitary god’s original “perch” or “pedestal.”1234 The “pedestal,” as we have seen, was also called the pillar of Shu, which the hieroglyphs record  by the sign . Here too a single column branches into two secondary supports. (In following sections the reader will find numerous evidences connecting the images and with the underlying cosmic form      ).

The Egyptian  hieroglyphs  also employ the   mountain sign            , appearing to show three  peaks;  and  in     early

 

representations this configuration, too, appears as the summit of a central pillar . There can be little doubt that the three- peaked mount pertains to the same idea as the twofold summit. The middle peak appears to indicate a simple extension of the central column. The great god, who stands between the peaks of the right and left, becomes himself a part of the mount on which he rests.

 

This development finds illustration in the Hindu symbolism of Mount Meru, the mountain of the crescent  moon. Meru, despite its crescent peak, is the tricutadri, or mountain of three summits. Similarly, the Hindu “White Island” or lost paradise is deemed “the three-peaked land.”1235

Compare Olympus in the Greek poem: From Olympus, the summit

From the three peaks of Heaven.1236

The basis of this symbolism, according to Faber, is the great god, “standing upright” in the midst of the cleft so as to present the image of a central mountain “terminating in three points formed by the two horns of the crescent and its centrical mast [the great god].”1237

Accordingly, the primal Hindu image        passes into the later , which forms the crest of the Hindu trident —the symbol of the cosmic column. The trident, in other words, originated in the cleft “Mountain of the Moon” . To this image answers the Egyptian three-peaked column .

Of the three-peaked mount much more could be said, but at the cost of distracting from the more basic theme— the two-fold summit. It is my contention that the myths of the split peak originated in the prehistoric perception of a vast crescent seeming to constitute  the summit of a cosmic  column  . Within the cup of the crescent rested the sun . Moreover the crescent was itself simply the illuminated half of a circular band . And if we include the four rivers of life we arrive at the form  as the complete image of the Saturnian configuration. Have the ancients preserved for us a literal rendering of this idea?

One could not ask for a more accurate representation than that provided by the cylinder seals of ancient Mesopotamia, which offers us the symbol 1238. The circular paradise on the mountaintop, watered by the four rivers, lay within the primeval “moon” (of which our lunar crescent is but a pale emblem).

Surely the remarkable correspondence of myth and symbol concerning this celestial configuration (a configuration which flatly contradicts the present arrangement of the heavens) suggests that something more than primitive fancy is at work. If the thesis outlined here is correct, then a single celestial apparition gave rise to these interrelated images: ,      ,      ,      ,      , , ,      , , ,     , , .

The crescent is a central ingredient in the symbolism, and its presence implies a tangible band so illuminated as to display two halves, one bright, the other more subdued.

The Heavenly Twins

Saturn’s enclosure united two semicircles of light and shadow, distinguished by a revolving crescent. In the  bright and dark divisions of the enclosure the ancients perceived the cosmic twins, the “two faces” of the Universal Monarch.

In the human domain, one of every eighty-six births involves twins. But among the gods, the abnormal is the rule. The great father is either born of or raised by twins, while also giving birth to twins. And the great god himself commonly appears in dual form.

Prevailing astronomical explanations of the celestial twins identify them as a circle of day and night, or as the evening and morning star, or as the sun and moon. The constellation Gemini became the zodiacal representative of the celestial twins, though it is almost universally agreed that the mythical pair existed long before the naming of such star groups.

Who Were the Dioscuri?

 

Privileged as the starting point of countless treatises on the twins are the Greek Dioscuri (the two sons of Zeus), Castor and Polydeuces. In a battle with their cousins Idas and Lynceus (sons of Aphareus) Castor fell mortally wounded. While his brother gasped for breath, Polydeuces beseeched Zeus: “Bid me also die, O King, with this my brother.”

Zeus answered the prayer by granting that the two brothers spend alternate days above and below the earth. Pindar records Zeus’s promise: “ . . . If thou contendest for thy brother, and art minded to have an equal share with him in all things, then mayest thou breathe for half thy time beneath the earth, and for half thy time in the golden homes of heaven.”1239

Cook’s explanation of the reward is simple enough: the brothers represented the day and night sky, revolving round our earth. Their alternating position provides “a simple but graphic expression of the obvious fact that the divine sky is half dark, half bright.”1240 Supporting this interpretation is the remark of Philon the Jew concerning the habit of mythologists: “They  bisected the sky theoretically into hemispheres, one above, the other below, the earth, and called them Dioskoroi, adding a marvelous tale about their life on alternate days.”1241

Several centuries after Philon, Joannes the Lydian (living in the sixth century A.D.) repeated the theory: “The philosophers declare that the Dioskoroi are the hemisphere below, and the hemisphere above, the earth; they take it in turns to die, according to the myth, because turn and turn about they pass beneath our feet.”1242 Observing that semicircles were sacred to the Dioscuri, Cook concludes that the two brothers personify two halves of a celestial circle—“the animate  Sky.”1243 This, of course, would not preclude the ancients from employing the sun and moon or the morning and evening star as symbols of the light and dark hemispheres: “These are but secondary modes of denoting the great primary contrast between Day and Night,” states Cook.1244

Of the celestial twins one could pursue example upon example in classical myth alone: Apollo and Artemis, Zetes and Calais, Zerhus and Amphion, Hercules and Iphicles, Otus and Ephialtes, Pelias and Neleus, to name a few. And these figures of the celestial twins are simply a small segment of the vastly larger Indo-European pattern reviewed by Walker.1245

 

66. The Latin twin god Janus, whose single hat means “Cosmos.”

Also, one must place alongside the twins the comparable two-headed or two-faced god. Here we meet Janus, whom the Italians knew as the “most ancient of gods,” and whom they regularly depicted with two faces, looking in opposite directions ( fig. 66). Janus, according to Cook, personified the vault of heaven, his two faces signifying the two aspects of the sky (day and night): Janus “was originally the divine Sky. The divine Sky is bright by day and dark by night. Being, therefore, of a two-fold or twin character, Janus was naturally represented as a double-faced god.”1246

Janus, as the twin-god par excellence gives us the title Janiform, applied to any two-headed or two-faced deity (of which the ancient world provides innumerable instances). I give as an example a specimen from Etruria (fig. 66), depicting a Janiform head wearing a petasos or broad-brimmed hat (often associated with Hermes). This compares with the “broad-brimmed hat” worn by Odin, Attis, and others. According to Eisler, whose opinion is shared by Cook, the hat symbolized, simply, “the sky” so that the two faces together correspond to the entire circle of the hat (heaven, sky).1247

The Black and White Twins

Though not all twins are black and white, many are, and it is this very dichotomy which Cook notices in several Greek examples. In certain instances one twin appears on a white horse and the other on a black.1248

This aspect of the twins appears to be universal. In his character as a twin-god the Mexican Quetzalcoatl unites with Mictlantecuhtli, the two divinities appearing back to back, one black, the other white.1249 The Zuni represented their twin war gods by black and white masks. The black and white Asvins of Hindu myth are an obvious parallel. Hindu philosophers, states Agrawala, divided the cosmic wheel into two halves, one black and one white, which they personified as twin sisters forming “a circle (chakra) revolving in eternal time.”1250 In Melanesia, states Eliade, “one constantly comes across the myth of the two brothers, one bright, the other dull.”1251

 

Often the twins struggle with each other (sometimes one is “good” and the other “evil”), a feature which complements the black-white and rising-setting aspect of the Dioscuri. Chinese myth describes two brothers named Opeh and Schichin at constant war.1252 The Ugaritic twins Mot and Aliyan quarrel, as do the Celtic Gwyn and Gwythur.1253 Remus dies at the hand of Romulus. Acrisius and Proetus quarrel while in the womb of their mother. Jacob and Esau do the same. The North American Indian mother goddess Awehai conceived twins who battled while yet in the womb. There can be little doubt that the Chinese yin and yang (primordial forces of light and darkness) or the Manichaean primal pair of good and evil bore a close relationship to this general tradition of the cosmic twins.

The black and white aspect of the twins appears to be consistent with Cook’s theory of a revolving heavenly sphere divided into contending hemispheres of light and darkness. But there are other features of the twins which fit less comfortably into Cook’s model. Why were the twins so often conceived as two primeval rulers (or two aspects of the Universal Monarch, the founder of civilization)?

The Dioscuri bore a distinct relationship to the twins Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. There seems to have been a general tradition of dual kingship, for just as the Dioscuri, in early Doric days, found personification in two kings of Sparta, the Latin Romulus and Remus appear as royal twins, reigning with equal rights. Representations of Romulus and Remus often assimilate the pair to the Dioscuri.1254

The question is whether something as abstract as a boundless “sky” could have provoked the idea of a primeval pair  ruling in effect as a single king. The twins, as in the case of Janus, attach themselves to the Universal Monarch as his two faces, looking in opposite directions. Cook, of course, recognizes this, but he conceives Janus, the primeval god-king, not in concrete terms, but as an open expanse—the “sky.”

Was this the true identity of Janus? One notes with considerable interest the statement of Joannes the Lydian: “Our own Philadelphia still preserves a trace of the ancient belief. On the first day of the month (sc. January) there goes in procession no less a personage than Janus himself, dressed up in a two-faced mask, and the people call him Saturnus, identifying him with Kronos.”1255

To Cook this identity of Janus and Saturn must result from an ancient confusion, but to us it accurately reflects the archaic doctrine. Janus, as the “most ancient indigenous god of Italy” (Herodian’s phrase),1256 is the great father,  whom the star-worshippers of many lands recognized as the planet Saturn.

Also crucial is the relationship of the celestial pair to the cosmic pillar. Many ancient representations of the twins or twin- god place the two heads atop the sacred pole. As for the Janiform type in Greece, Cook cites instances in which “the double face is set on a pillar or post.”1257 One finds similar portrayals of the two-faced god in China, northern Europe, Siberia, India, the Americas, and elsewhere. To one who conceives the post as nothing more than a venerated piece of wood, the connection between it and the two-faced god will mean nothing. But to one who sees the sacred post as the emblem of the Primeval Hill, the placement is charged with meaning: the cosmic twins occupied the summit of the central mountain.

Of the male deities worshipped by the Navaho, states Alexander, the most important are the twins Nayanezgani and Thobadzistshini, who bring to an end the primeval Age of Giants. “Their home is on a mountain in the centre of the Navaho country.” “The legend of the heaven-growing rock, lifting twins to the skies, occurs more than once in California.”1258

Here are two aspects of the celestial twins which do not readily fit Cook’s explanation of the pair. The twins are two faces or two aspects of Saturn, the Universal Monarch; and they sit upon the cosmic mountain. Are these accidental attributes of the twins or do they pertain to an integrated image?

It is surprising that Cook, while giving meticulous attention to classical testimony, gives no attention to the more ancient prototype of the Dioscuri and the Janiform god. The most complete evidence comes from ancient Egypt, whose ritual and art provide an incisive portrait of the twins.

 

67. The twin god Horus-Set.

Of the black and white brothers the world knows no older example than the Egyptian pair Horus and Set. In fig. 67 the heads of Horus and Set appear upon one body, looking to the right and left. The black head of Set contrasts sharply with the light head of Horus, emphasizing the pair’s role as “the two opponent gods.”

Closely related to Horus and Set are the twins Isis and Nephthys, often portrayed back to back. (fig. 67). The Egyptian pairs Shu and Tefnut, Thoth and Maat, Sekhet and Neith all reveal a similar underlying character.

In the Book of the Dead the pictograph of the two “portions” of Horus and Set is the sign  , the band of the Aten.1259 The clear implication is that the sun-god’s enclosure possesses two twin-like divisions, one light, the other dark. Moreover, if the circle of the Aten is half light, half dark, surely one cannot ignore the related sign , the crescent-enclosure, which appears to provide a literal illustration of the two realms of Horus and Set.

In the same way, the Egyptian shen bond   stood not only for the sun-god’s enclosure (Aten) but for the twins Isis and Nephthys.

Together Isis and Nephthys, the back-to-back twins, formed the protective “border” or “boundary” of the All, the Cosmos. While the Egyptian tcher means “boundary,” “limit,” tehera means “protective rampart” and tcherti the two halves of the boundary or rampart. The two Tcherti are Isis and Nephthys.

Egyptian cosmology reveals the coherent image of a bisected enclosure revolving around the central sun. Two interrelated aspects of the twins stand out:

1.     In one sense the twins are simply the light and dark halves of the enclosure—a characteristic most pronounced in the pair Horus and Set.

2. But the twofold enclosure revolved around the stationary light god, and by its revolution, the illuminated crescent—the “face” of the great god—marked out the respective divisions of the “right and left” ( , ) and “above and below” ,  ).In their primary personality, the twins Isis and Nephthys represented these counterpoised positions of the crescent, and hence two divisions of the celestial kingdom. (In standard translations, the divisions of the left and right are usually rendered as “east” and “west,” confusing cosmography (the map of the Cosmos) with the local geography, while the “above” and “below” are translated “heaven” and “earth,” leading to a different but equally troublesome confusion).

This interpretation of the cosmic twins coincides with Cook’s in identifying the pair with a celestial circle, half dark and half light. Distinguishing this view from Cook’s, however, is the proposed nature of the circle. Did the twofold circle mean the abstract “sky,” or a concrete band (with crescent ) enclosing the central sun?

A requirement of the interpretation set forth here is that the sun-god stand between the twins and that the circle of the twins revolve around him. Of course, if the twins refer to the open “sky” and the sun-god means the solar orb, it would be meaningless—in fact a contradiction—to place the god in the centre of the circle (i.e., between the semicircles of day and night) or to speak of the twins revolving around the sun-god.

 

The Egyptians’ great god wears the enclosure of the Aten as a “girdle.” According to the Pyramid Texts this garment is the circle   of the celestial twins: “I am girt with the girdle of Horus, I am clad with the garment of Thoth, Isis is before me and Nephthys is behind me.”1260 Such language occurs repeatedly in early Egyptian sources. In the Book of the Dead, the king asks,  “May I see Horus . . . , with the god Thoth and the goddess Maat, one on each side of him.” 1261 In the Coffin Texts Atum declares of the twins Shu and Tefnut: “I was between these two, the one being in front of me, the other behind me.”1262 “The two mistresses of Buto accompany you to the right and left.”1263 The Pyramid Texts announce that the “two great and mighty Enneads . . . set Shu for you on your east [left] side and Tefnut on your west [right] side.”1264 The king proclaims, “Neith is behind me, and Selket is before me.”1265 Thus the Universal Monarch gives “judgement in the heavens between the two Contestants [Horus and Set].”1266

The light and dark halves of the enclosure—in perpetual revolution, or “conflict”—are balanced by the great god. “I am the girdle of the robe of the god Nu . . . which uniteth the two fighting deities who dwell in my body [ khat, womb].”1267 “I am the god who keepeth opposition in equipoise as his Egg circleth round.”1268

With a little imagination one might possibly conceive the open sky as a black and white sphere revolving around our earth, but such a circle could in no sense appear as a twofold band around a central sun. It is here, in short, that Cook’s explanation of the twins appears to break down.

The Egyptian twins signify two divisions of the Aten . There is only one enclosure of the sun, yet by virtue if its portions of light and shadow it becomes the “twofold circle” or, as often translated, “the two circles.” And this “double” band is the womb of the mother goddess, giving birth to the central sun. A Coffin Text thus celebrates “the two rings which have given birth to the gods.”1269 The reference is to the twofold enclosure of Isis and Nephthys. “He was conceived in Isis and begotten in Nephthys,” states the Book of the Dead.1270 The same source declares: “I was conceived by the goddess Sekhet, and the goddess Neith gave birth to me.”1271

Accordingly, the Coffin Texts say:

. . . Your two mothers who are in Nekheb [the celestial province] shall come to you . . .1272 Oh you two who conceived Re, you shall bear me who am in the egg.1273 The Pyramid Texts reveal the same notion of a twofold womb:

. . . The two great ladies [Isis and Nephthys] bore you.1274

My mother is Isis, my nurse is Nephthys.1275

The King was conceived by Sakhmet, and it is Shezmetet who bore the King.1276

The two goddesses were not merely twins, but the two halves of a single womb. These two divisions may appear either as the two thighs of Nut (“Re shines between the thighs of Nut”)1277 or as the thighs of Isis and Nephthys.  To attain the primeval womb “the King ascends upon the thighs of Isis, the King climbs upon the thighs of Nephthys.”1278

That the two-fold enclosure was something more than an ill-defined “sky” is proved by the enclosure’s various symbolic forms. The fact is that every mythical formulation of the Saturnian band (assembly, holy land, temple, city, eye, serpent, etc.) is specifically portrayed as a twofold circle, whose two divisions are the cosmic twins.

Here are a few examples from the Egyptian system:

The Two Assemblies: Egyptian texts identify the circle of the gods as the “Two Conclaves” or “Two Enneads”:

. . . You stand in the Conclaves of the Mount of Glory . . . the Two Enneads come to you bowing.1279

The sky is strong and Nut jubilates when she sees what Atum has done, while he sat among the Two Enneads.1280

I have given you vindication in the Two Conclaves.1281 My lips are the two Enneads: I am the Great Word.1282

This twofold circle of the gods forms at once the “body” of the great god and the “womb” of the great mother: Hail, Khepera . . . the two-fold company of the gods is thy body. [khat, “body,” may also be translated “womb”].1283 I am a great one, the son of a great one. I issue from between the thighs of the Two Enneads.1284

 

I have come forth between the [two] thighs of the company of the gods.1285

It was a crescent which divided the circular assembly into two portions, for the hieroglyphic symbol of paut, “company of the  gods,” is the crescent-enclosure .

The Two Lands: The celestial “Egypt,” founded and ruled by the Universal Monarch, possessed two divisions, alternately termed “the right and left” or “the above and below.” The priests of the Memphite doctrine announced:

Thus it was that Horus appeared as King of Upper Egypt and as King of Lower Egypt who united the Two Lands in the province of the (white) Wall at the place where the Two Lands are united.1286

The first king is the creator, and the “land” which he gathered together and unified is a twofold circle. Hence the Two Lands receive the title “the Two Ladies” (Isis and Nephthys) or appear as “the portions of Horus and Set,” 1287 or the twin circle of the gods.1288

In their organization of the terrestrial kingdom the Egyptians strove to reproduce the bisected enclosure, the ideal kingdom. Writes Frankfort: “The dualistic forms of Egyptian kingship did not result from historical incidents. They embody the peculiarly Egyptian thought that a totality comprises opposites . . . A State dualistically conceived must have appeared to the Egyptians the manifestation of the order of creation . . .”1289

 

68. The Egyptian twin gods bind together the unified “land.”

In the early ritual texts the phrase “Upper and Lower Egypt” consistently refers to the celestial kingdom, not local geography. When the Pyramid Texts, for example, declare that “the Two Lands shine again and he [the great god] clears the visions of the gods,”1290 it should be obvious that they refer to the primordial dwelling above, rather than terrestrial Egypt.

The Two Crowns: The god-king is “the Good Ruler who appears in the Double Crown, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands.”1291 No one reading these lines for the first time is likely to imagine that the “Double Crown” denoted the same dual enclosure as the “Two Lands.” Yet, drawing on the cosmic imagery discussed in previous pages one perceives the influence of a single conception. Though the Two Lands are Isis and Nephthys, the same twins appear as two crowns worn by the god-king. “ . . . your two mothers the two White Crowns caress you, your two mothers the two White Crowns kiss you . . .”1292

The Egyptians proclaimed that the two crowns composed the circle of glory (khu) which issued from the heart or head of the great god. “The two ‘Great in Magic’ [crowns] grew out of his head. Thus it was that Horus appeared as King of Upper Egypt and as King of Lower Egypt . . .”1293  To acquire the two crowns was to unify the Two Lands.

The Two Eyes: “Thou didst stretch out the heavens wherein thy two eyes might travel,” reads the Book of the Dead.1294 The two eyes are simply the two halves of the singular revolving eye, personified by the cosmic twins. “Thine eyebrows are the two sister goddesses who are at peace with each other,” reads the Book of the Dead.1295 Isis and Nephthys are thus called “the two eyes” of Re.

The Two Serpents: If the Egyptian sign  relates the circular serpent or uraeus to the band of the enclosed sun, the sign of the “two” uraei  shows the latter to be two halves of the same band—a fact which agrees with the title of Isis and Nephthys as “the two serpent-goddesses.” “The goddess Nebt-Unnut is established upon thy head [as the crown] and her uraei of the South [Upper Egypt] and North [Lower Egypt] are upon thy brow.”1296 (The Two Lands compose the two uraei serpents, which the god-king wears as a double crown.)

 

The texts leave no doubt that the eye, crown, and circular serpent, each referring to the same enclosure around the light god, possessed a dual aspect, as two eyes, two crowns, and two serpents; and this twofold enclosure was the double circle of the gods (the Two Enneads) encircling the Two Lands.

O King, I provide you with the Eye of Horus, the Red Crown rich in power and many natured, that it may protect you, O king, just as it protects Horus; may it set your power, O King, at the head of the Two Enneads as the two serpent-goddesses who are on your brow, that they may raise you up.1297

Passing briefly to other forms of the primeval enclosure one finds the same connection with the celestial twins:

The Two Thrones: The king has come to his throne which is upon the Two Ladies.1298

The Two Vases (= Two Eyes): Take the two Eyes of Horus, the black and white; take them to your forehead that they may illuminate your face—the lifting up of a white jar and a black jar.1299

The Two Lakes or Rivers: I am born, I purify myself in the two great and mighty lakes in Heracleopolis . . . 1300

O Destroyer who comest out of the Double Throne Lake.1301

He has circumambulated the Two Banks [The Two Banks denoted the circle of Upper and Lower “Egypt,” enclosed by the revolving river]1302

The Two Cords:

Oh you two who are lifted up . . . , who make the metacord of the god . . .1303

These are the two knots of Elephantine which are in the mouth of Osiris.1304

Every mythical form of the primeval enclosure in Egypt appears as a twofold band, the circle of the celestial twins. The diverse figures of the twins, though complicating the symbolism, always point to the same root idea. The twins denote the revolving enclosure of the great god’s dwelling in heaven, divided into equal portions of light and shadow. Neither Cook’s identification of the twins as the abstract night and day sky, nor any other explanation based on the present celestial order, can account for the underlying identity of the twins as a circle revolving around a central sun.

 

69.   An Etruscan mirror depicts the Dioscuri to the right and left of a central “sun” or “star.”

 

70. The Uruboros, identified as “the One, the All,” half dark and half light. From the Codex Marcianus (11th cent.).

 

In numerous lands the great father appears to have his home within the embrace of celestial twins. Butterworth reports that “ . . . From Asia Minor to Egypt, from Delos to Syria, reliefs and coins and other works of art and craftsmanship bear representations of a triad consisting of the Dioskoroi, the ‘Heavenly Twins,’ dispersed on either side of a divine figure . . .”1305

In Egyptian, Sumero-Babylonian, Iranian, Hindu, and Greek imagery the twins appear as twin doors (of the right and left) from which the sun shines forth.1306

The Gnostic uroborus or circular serpent is half black and half white and encloses the sun (fig. 70). The Muslim circular serpent, enclosing the Ka’ba and constituting the world ocean, “glitters” in the sun and is half white and half black. 1307 But the same twofold serpent will be found from China to the Americas (figs. 71, 72, 73, 74 & 75).

The world egg of Hindu, Greek, and Chinese symbolism is bisected into black and white semicircles. Hindu sources depict the primeval womb as “two bowls” which together form a single circle, half white, half black.1308 The face of the Mexican mother goddess is half black, half white, resembling the black and white Greek Erinyes or the bright and dark aspects of the Greek goddess Demeter-Persephone.1309

Similarly, two winged goddesses turn the wheel of Ixion, just as two goddesses operate the wheel of the Icelandic world mill or the wheel of the Hindu Skambha.1310

The Babylonian Shamash and Tammuz rest within the mouth of the “twin rivers,”1311 while the Canaanite El stands “at the sources of the Two Rivers, in the midst of the pools of the Double-Deep.”1312

 

71.   Twofold circular dragon in alchemist manuscript

 

72. Egyptian (a), Sumerian (b), and Malayan (c), illustrations of the primeval twins reveal a remarkably similar concept. Together the twins form an

 

73.   Buddhist Tri-Ratna

 

74. Chinese twin dragons, and the quartered circle

 

75. Twofold dragon from Honduras

The band of the enclosed sun, whatever its mythical form, is consistently portrayed as a twofold circle, half black and half white. What defines the two divisions is the illuminated crescent  , revolving about the band so as to alternately face “above and below”       ,       or “left and right” , .

While ancient sources never question the dual character of the enclosure, the language of the two divisions is susceptible to considerable misunderstanding by anyone attempting to read it within the context of an assumed solar mythology or of local geography. (I examine these confusions in later sections on “Heaven and Earth” and “East and West.”)

Symbolism of the Crescent

 

 

 

The connection of the circumpolar enclosure with a crescent confirms that the images      and       pertained to the same celestial configuration as the images      and . But just as the ancients interpreted the enclosure and cosmic mountain in different ways, should we not find that they expressed the crescent in varying forms also? In seeking to answer this question one must reckon with the most extraordinary aspects of the Saturnian imagery.

Of the crescent in the primary images       and ancient sources present these basic forms:

• The Horns of the bull-god (or cow-goddess).
• The great father’s
• The uplifted arms of the heaven-sustaining
• The outstretched wings of the mother goddess (or winged god).

In the language of ancient ritual, “horns,” “ships,” “arms,” and “wings” possess an underlying identity which defies all natural relationships between such concepts in the modern world. To reside within the wings of the mother goddess is to dwell upon the upraised arms of the Heaven Man. But these same wings, or arms, constitute the great god’s sailing vessel—which in turn is depicted as two shining “horns.” Let us examine the connection of these forms with the Saturnian configuration .

The Crescent Horn

In accord with the images        and , the central sun appears as a horned god (the Bull of Heaven), while his spouse, the cow-goddess, encloses the sun-god within two horns.

Though extolled as the “sun,” all figures of the great father possess the crescent “moon” as two horns, reigning over the first age as the generative Bull.

In Egypt, the “sun-gods” Re, Horus, Osiris, Amen, and Ptah all take the form of a horned god—the mighty “bull.”1313

Osiris is the “son of Nut, lord of the two horns.”1314 The Litany of Re celebrates the god as the “supreme power, with attached head, with high horns.”1315  One of Re’s epithets is simply “Shining Horn.”1316

A chapter of the Book of the Dead begins: “I am the sharp-horned Bull, who regulateth the sky, the Lord of the risings in heaven, the great Giver of Light, who issueth from Flame.”1317

“I am seated in front of the Great Ones like the horned Re,” reads a Coffin Texts.1318 As the incarnation of the great god, the king acquires the title “Bull of Light.”1319

It is the general consensus of Egyptologists that Re and his counterparts originated as solar gods. To what, then, do the sun-god’s shining “horns” refer?

The characterization of the great god as a horned deity seems to be a general principle of ancient thought. A Babylonian hymn to Ramman (the “sun-god”) begins: “O lord Ramman, thy name is the great god glorious bull, child of heaven . . . , lord of plenty.”1320 Anu, Ninurta, Enlil, and Enki all possess radiant horns. “ . . . The sun, as the ‘Bull of  Light’ [the very title of the Egyptian god-king], was accorded the supreme position in the Babylonian solar-god hierarchy,” writes Conrad.1321  But the horns of the Bull of Heaven are the crescent “moon”:

Father Nannar, heavenly lord

. . . moon god . . . lord of Ur . . . lord of the brilliant crescent . . . O strong bull, great of horns.1322

Hindu sources depict Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva, Agni, and Indra as bulls with luminous horns. The Greek Dionysus (Latin Bacchus) is “the bull-horned god” said to have been born a “horned child.” Adonis receives the same form. The Canaanite El is addressed as “Bull-god” while the Greek Kronos is “the horned god.” If Yahweh was “the Bull of Israel,” Helios was the “Adiounian bull.”

From Africa to northern Europe to the Americas the archaic “sun”-god wears the horns of the crescent “moon.”1323

 

In the myths of several lands the celestial bull appears in the guise of Heaven Man, his body providing the primeval matter of the Cosmos. A hymn of the Hindu Atharva Veda, titled “Extolling the Ox,” identifies the various gods with the limbs of the cosmic bull: “Prajapati and the most exalted one are his two horns, Indra his head, Agni his forehead, Yama his neck-joint . . .” etc.1324 The Persians knew this beast as the “Primal Bull” or “the Sole-Created Ox” dwelling in Eran Vej, the “central land”; his form was “white and brilliant as the moon.” The world of the first man and first woman was created from his body.1325

There is only one sense in which the myth of the horned “sun” or great father will find meaningful interpretation. The horns belong to Saturn, the sun within the crescent-enclosure . If the Babylonians

 

76. Two Egyptian versions of the winged bull: (a) the Apis bull of Memphis; (b) the Bacchis bull of Hermonthis

 

77. The horns of the celestial ibex (Mesopotamia) enclose the sun-cross. From a vase discovered at

 

78. Bucranium design,

 

79. Fragment of painted vessel from Baluchistan, showing the “sun” between the borns of the

knew Saturn as Anu, “the horned one,” the Phoenicians called the planet-god Ba’al Qarnaim, “Lord of the Two Horns.” 1326 The Greek Saturn-name Kronos, according to Robert Brown, possesses the radical sense “the Horned.”1327

Ancient Egyptian imagery is unvarying in connecting the horns with the  Aten, the enclosure of the sun  . In a Coffin Text the great god recalls the first occasion, “before the Aten had been fastened on the horns.” 1328 Another source describes the “Aten which is between his horns.”1329 Pharaoh Thutmose I calls himself the god “Horus-Re, Mighty-Bull— the sun with sharp horns who comes out of the Aten.”1330 Can one seriously doubt that such hymns refer to the light god within the crescent-enclosure ?

Two popular forms of the Egyptian horned god were the Apis Bull, worshipped at Memphis, and the Mnevis Bull of Heliopolis. Illustrations of these bull-gods confirm the very relationship of the horns and enclosure described in the hymns: the circle of the  Aten  rests  firmly  upon  the  bull’s  horns,  offering  the  precise  image  . The Egyptian bull-god Bakha similarly wears the Aten between his two horns. The hieroglyphic symbol of the horned Aten is . (On the meaning of this imagery the specialists remain silent.) One of the hieroglyphic forms of the Aten

has as its determinative the sign                           , signifying “the two-horned enclosure.” That the mystic horns embrace   or encircle the central sun is a principle reaching far beyond Egypt. In the famous horned cap of Mesopotamian divinities, “the horns were imagined as encircling the head of a divinity rather than springing out of it,” writes Van Buren. 1331 Sometimes the symbolic horns in Mesopotamia are not those of a bull but rather of an ibex, a heavenly beast whom the myths call the “Ibex of the Apsu [cosmic ocean].”1332 Vase paintings show the horns of the ibex encircling the sun-cross1333 (fig. 77). Elsewhere the “sun” appears between the horns of a bull (figs. 78, 79).

In Egyptian and Scandinavian rock drawings the “sun” rests between the horns of bovine figures, and the illustrations often emphasize the horns’ character as an enclosure by drawing them full circle (figs. 84, 87). Correspondingly, a poem of the East African Didinga extols the:

White Cow of heaven, your horns have curved full circle and are joined as one.1334

In the same vein the Hindu Atharva Veda recalls “The ruddy one, the sharp-horned bull, who encompassed Agni, the sun.”1335 The Iranian Verethraghna, who bears the “glory” (halo ) of Ahura Mazda, possesses “the shape of a wild beautiful ram, with horns bent round.”1336

The horns which are “bent round” will be the crescent-enclosure, the dwelling of the central sun                 which is to say, the

horns are inseparable  from the womb  of the mother  goddess. Hence the   Egyptian sign             , which neatly expresses the crescent’s mythical aspect as two horns, denotes the goddess Hathor, the “House of Horus.” Because Hathor is the goddess of the horned womb, there is no contradiction between the hymns locating Re “in the womb of thy mother Hathor” and the representations of the goddess as “sky-cow who bears the sun-god between her horns.”1337

In the same way, Hathor is at once the Eye of Re and the horns supporting the Eye: “I am that eye of yours which is on the horns of Hathor,” reads a Pyramid Text.1338 One of the names of the Egyptian goddess is simply “Horns, Lady of Purification.”1339

 

80.   The goddess Hathor, wearing the horned Aten

Closely paralleling this title of Hathor is the name of the Mesopotamian goddess: “the Lady with the horned countenance.”1340 The Sumerian goddess Inanna describes her own womb as “a horn,”1341 while the related Phoenician goddess Ashtoreth appears as “Queen of heaven with crescent horns” or “Ashtoreth of the double horn.”1342 A horn, in the Hindu Satapatha Brahmana, means the womb of primeval genesis. “ . . . The black deer’s horn is the same as that womb,” states the text. The priest “touches with it [the horn] his forehead close over the right eyebrow, with the text, ‘Thou art Indra’s womb’—for it is indeed Indra’s womb, since in entering it he enters thereby, and in being born he is born therefrom: therefore he  says, ‘Thou art Indra’s womb.’“1343

It makes no difference whether the horns are those of a bull, cow, ram, antelope, deer, goat, or buffalo. The  vital idea was of a horned enclosure, and ancient nations inheriting the tradition obviously adapted the celestial horn to animal forms most familiar to them.

The Horned Mountain

In the Pyramid Texts, the king returns to the womb of his birth, with the words: “I have joined my mother the Great Wild Cow. O  my mother, the Wild Cow which is upon the Mountain . . .”1344 “Homage to thee, Re, supreme power, Shining Horn, Pillar of Amentet,” reads the Litany of Re.1345  The Bakha bull, which supports the Aten  between its horns, is “the Bull of the two Mountains.”

That the horns of the bull or cow constitute the two peaks of the cosmic mountain can alone explain such imagery. The Bull of Heaven, in its original form, is nothing more than a horned pillar—as is made clear in a Pyramid Text addressing “the Pillar of the Stars . . . , the Pillar of Kenset, the Bull of Heaven.” 1346 This is the bull “whose horns shine, the (well) anointed pillar, the Bull of Heaven.”1347

In truth, all that distinguishes the horned Aten  from the “Mount of Glory” hieroglyph   is the mythical form in which the recumbent crescent found expression. Mythically, the crescent was viewed as both a split peak and two horns.

Indeed, one finds that the Egyptian priests had no doubts about the identity of the horns and the cleft summit, for the two symbols constantly overlap in Egyptian art. Sometimes the head of a bull is placed between the two peaks of the mountain symbol , with the Aten resting on the bull’s two horns (figs. 81, 82).

In an early period, the Egyptians represented the twin peaks by the image , locating the cleft summit atop the primeval “pedestal”  . At other times, however, they showed a bull resting on the pedestal with the mountain sign displaced to the side (fig. 83). Clearly, the artists recognized the overlapping meanings of the two symbols.

Often, in fact, the mountain sign is drawn so as to appear more like horns than two hills (fig. 85b), and this image, as noted by Percy Newberry some time ago, is virtually identical to the Cretan “horns of consecration” discussed by Sir Arthur Evans in

 

his now-famous work, “The Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult”1348 (fig. 85a) Thus G.E. Smith observes the “identity of what Evans calls the ‘horns of consecration’ and the [Egyptian] ‘mountains of the horizon.’“1349(By “mountains of the horizon” Smith means, of course, the two-peaked Mount of Glory.)

 

81. Illustration of the Aten (circular serpent) from the Papyrus Of Her-Uben A shows the overlapping interpretations of the Aten’s crescent as a twin-peaked mountain, the horns of a cosmic bull, and twin loins (Aker).

 

82. To show the identity of the Aten’s crescent-horns and the twin peaks, Egyptian artists placed the bull’s head between the two

Perceiving the horns as the cleft summit of the pillar sustaining the Cosmos , one can understand the spell of the Coffin Texts, which reads: “I am the Bull, the Old One of Kenzet [Kenset, the horned pillar] . . . I support the sky with my horns.”1350

 

83.   Prehistoric Egyptian symbols for the two-peaked mount.

 

84. By indicating the horns as a full circle, prehistoric Egyptian pictures of the cosmic bull (or twin bulls) emphasize the connection of the horns with the celestial

 

85. (a) Cretan “horns of consecration”; (b) Egyptian “cleft peak”

 

86. Mesopotamian horned

The Sumero-Babylonians personified the heaven-sustaining peak Hursag as the mountain giant Enlil, also a

horned pillar:

O great Enlil, im-hur-sag [Great Mountain] whose head rivals the heavens,

whose foundation is laid in the pure abyss, Whose horns gleam like the rays of the Sun-god.1351

Both Egyptian and Mesopotamian sources give the heaven-sustaining mountain shining horns! The name of the Babylonian antediluvian king Alaparos derives from alap, “bull.” and ur, “foundation.” He is the “Bull of the Foundation.”1352

 

87.   Variations of the cosmic bull in Scandinavian rock drawings. At root the bull is the pillar and crescent-enclosure

 

88. Rock picture from Germany, identified by Herbert Kuhn as “stylized oxen”

 

89.   American Indian horned enclosure, resting on erect serpent

Thus the paradisal “earth” rested upon the crescent-horns. The Babylonians called the horned pillar the “Great Bull, the most great Bull, stamping at the holy gates . . . director of Abundance, who supports the god Nirba . . .”1353 Lenormant comments: “This bull thus plays the role of a kind of Atlas, bearing the earth and its harvests upon his shoulders.”1354 But the primeval “earth,” as we have seen, was simply Saturn’s Cosmos.

Many Siberian legends speak of a primeval bull supporting the “world.”1355 Hebrew and Muslim traditions place  a bull atop the serpent-dragon Leviathan (here a symbol of the heavens pillar). The bull supports the earth on its shoulders1356. The ram’s horn of the Germanic Heimdal holds fast the rim of the world.1357

We consider again the Mesopotamian symbol of the quartered earth upon its pillar  . What is astonishing about this symbol is that it exactly corresponds to the mythical image of the bull, or horned pillar, holding aloft the cosmic enclosure (with four streams of life) and supporting the sun-god between its horns. To my knowledge, however, no one has yet proposed any connection between this sign and the myths.

As our earth turned on its axis, the crescent-horn must have visually appeared to revolve around   the enclosure , , , . “The Great Bull of Osiris circles around!” proclaims a text from the Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon.1358 Two lines from the Book of the Dead suggest the same thing: “I am the steer . . . I go round the Sekhet-Aaru [the circular plain of abundance].”1359

Accordingly, the revolving horns mark out a twofold enclosure. One of the earliest symbols of the Two Lands is a double-headed cow, facing to the right and left.1360(fig. 90) The Pyramid Texts call this “the two bulls within the Ibis.”1361 The reference is more significant than one might recognize at first glance, for the ibis encompassing the two twins is the god Thoth—whose symbol is the crescent-enclosure —:

“I have come and I have installed this house of mine . . . The door which is on it is two opposing bulls,” reads a Pyramid Text.1362

Together the “opposing” horns of the left and right , distinguish the full circle of the “door.”

To anyone perceiving the role of the Egyptian “two Bulls” as two halves of the sun’s enclosure (the door or gate through which the sun comes forth), it is impossible to overlook the corresponding imagery of two bulls in Mesopotamia, guarding the gates of the palace or temple. These are the “two bulls of the gate of the temple of E-Shakil,” the “two bulls of the gate of Ea,” or the “two bulls of the gate of the goddess Damkina.”1363

 

90. The Egyptian twin-headed bull, symbol of the “Two ”

 

91.   Mesopotamian design conveying the image of the primeval enclosure and revolving horns.

As to the primary meanings of the horned god or goddess ancient sources do not equivocate: mythically, the horns signify the revolving crescent reaching around the primeval enclosure and seeming to “support” or “embrace” the sun-god. The horns compose the two peaks of the cosmic mountain. And in their opposing positions around the central sun, they are identified as the cosmic twins, the “opponent gods.”

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IX The Crescent-Ship (Part 2)

All ancient sun gods sail in a celestial ship. In the oldest ritual the ship appears as a crescent revolving around the circle of the great god’s dwelling, while the god himself remains stationary. The ship’s “mooring post” (and, by extension, its “mast”) is the cosmic mountain.

One of Saturn’s most extraordinary possessions is the ark of heaven. Saturn is “literally represented as sailing over the ocean in a ship,” remarks Faber.1364 Ovid tells us that because the planet-god traversed the entire sphere of the “earth” in his primordial voyage, his special token was a ship, and this is the ship which appears on the reverse of coins stamped with the double face of Janus.1365 The latter god, as Saturn’s alter ego, was the “inventor” of barks and ships.1366

All of the Saturnian gods of the Sumero-Babylonian pantheon sail in a celestial ship, one of whose names is Magula-anna, “Great boat of Heaven.” The “beloved ship” of Ningirsu is “the one that rises up out of the dam of the deep.” 1367 Ea rides “the ship of the antelope of the Apsu,”1368  while Ninurta sails in the ship Magur.

The Chinese Huang-ti—the planet Saturn—was the first to sail in a ship. In his journey across the ocean, Hercules rode in a “golden goblet”—the ship of Helios (Saturn)—to which one naturally compares the “new-moon” boat of Dionysus. A ship of “self-made light” transports the Avestan great god Yima (Saturn).

The Phoenician great father Chrysor “was the first man who fared in ships,”1369 but it was also said that the twin god Ousoos “was the first who launched a boat.”1370 The Japanese creator god Sukuna-Biko-Na rides “on the crest of the  waves in a heavenly Kagami boat.”1371 “A golden ship of golden tackle moved about in the sky,” reads the Hindu Atharva Veda.1372

Natives of the Marquesas say that in the beginning there was only the sea on which the creator Tiki floated in a canoe.1373 The Hawaiian god Tanaroa sailed above in a “flying canoe,”1374 much like the great shaman of the Yenisei Ostiaks, who “rows his boat in heaven.” The legendary Hiawatha navigated “a white canoe which moved without human aid.”1375

That the original form of the sun-god’s ship was a crescent is a fact disputed by no one. The crescent form prevails in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, Greece, Scandinavia, and even in the Americas, leading to the popular belief that the mythical sun voyages in the “ship of the new moon.”

This opinion is due to one fact alone: the new moon is the only crescent familiar to the modern age. Yet so routine is the identification of the crescent-ship with our moon that mythologists give almost no attention to specific imagery suggesting a radically different interpretation.

Having observed the “unorthodox” role of the crescent-horn, it is appropriate to note first that ancient symbolism always equates the great god’s ship with the bull or cow of heaven. Prehistoric drawings from Egypt continually relate the ship to a horned creature and later Egyptian art continued the theme.1376

 

92.   The Mesopotamian great gods sail in the horned ship

The same connection occurs in many Scandinavian rock drawings. A rock picture from the Nubian desert south of Kerma shows the ship so placed on the back of a bull that the boat and the galloping animal are one.1377

The Sumero-Babylonian Nannar or Sin, esteemed as the bull with glistening horns, is also “the shining bark of the heavens.”1378 “May you ferry over by means of the Great Bull,” reads an Egyptian Pyramid Text.1379 Another declares: “the Bull  of the sky has bent down his horn that he may pass over thereby . . . ,”1380 while a Coffin Text celebrates the “long-horn which supports the bark of Anubis.”1381

Many years ago G.S. Faber, examining ancient symbolism of the ship, wrote: “A heifer seems to have been adopted as perhaps the most usual emblem of the Ark . . . That the heifer was an emblem of the Ark appears from a very curious passage in The Etymological Magnum, the author of which informs us, that Theba, in the Syrian dialect, signified ‘a heifer’ . . . The import, however, of Theba, in the Hebrew language, is ‘an ark’; and the only reason why a heifer was designated by the same appellation, was the circumstance of its being used as an arkite emblem.”1382

If the crescent-horn is that which embraces the enclosed sun  and visually revolves around the band each day, the ship of heaven must be the same crescent.

Direct confirmation comes from ancient Egypt. Though the Egyptian ship (as depicted in the reliefs) always possesses the crescent form, it revolves in a circle: “ . . . the ark of heaven was the revolving sphere configurated as a sailing vessel . . . the ark is portrayed in the act of sailing over a vast unfathomable hollow void,” writes Massey.1383

Perhaps the most common Egyptian word for “to sail” is seqet, from the root qet, “a circle” (written with the determinative ). Literally, seqet means “to go in a circle” (compare seqeti, “encircled”). Hence one text declares that “the barge circles in the sky,”1384 while another extols “the circlings of the henhenu-bark”1385 (henhenu is a name of the circular ocean above).

But what was the nature of the ship’s circular pathway? The ship sails around the sun-god’s enclosure: “I stand up in thy enclosure, O Maa; I sail round about.”1386 Chapter CXXXVI of the Book of the Dead is thus entitled “The Chapter of Sailing in the Great Boat of Re to Pass over the Circle of Bright Flame.”1387 Moreover, this connection of the crescent-boat with an enclosure will be found also in Mesopotamia. Though the crescent of Sin was the ma-gur boat possessed by Ninurta (Saturn), the sign for gur means “circular enclosure.”1388

Is there any direct statement that the enclosure depicted in the sign is the ship’s pathway? The Egyptians called the band Aten or khu (“glory,” “halo”): “Hail to you who sails in his Khu, who navigates a circle within his Aten,” reads the Book of the Dead.1389

Clearly, the subject is the crescent-enclosure. In the Pyramid Texts, King Unas announces, “I revolve round heaven like Re, I  sail  round  heaven  like  Thoth.”  While  Re’s  image  is  the  Aten  , the common symbol of Thoth is the crescent- enclosure  . Allowing the one image to explain the other, we see that Unas does not here engage in two separate acts, but in a single act depicted in two different ways: to revolve within the Aten is to sail in the crescent- ship of Thoth.1390

The circle of the Aten is the “brow” of Re, and it is on Re’s brow that the texts locate the ship: “I fly up and perch myself upon the forehead of Re, in the bows of his boat which is in heaven,” states the Book of the Dead.1391

“Thou sailest on high in the Evening Barge, thou joinest the followers of the Aten,”1392 To appreciate this line from the Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon one must recognize that the “followers” themselves compose the enclosure of the Aten; the great god in the ship resides within the circle of lesser gods. It is the same thing to say that the secondary gods, by forming the enclosure, stand on the

 

“pathway” of the ship, as stated in the Coffin Texts: “Every god who is on the border of your enclosure is on the path of your boat.”1393  Could one ask for a more explicit statement equating the enclosure and the revolving ship?

 

93. The “sun”-wheel resting in the cosmic ship, as depicted in Scandinavian rock drawings.

It is clear from the Egyptian sources that the ship and the secondary gods (the ship’s crew), in revolving around the

Aten, circumscribe the great god, who resides in the centre of the circle:

I cause Truth [maat] to circle about at the head of the great barge which carries the Justified One in the council . . .

The crew of Re circles about.1394

The dwellers in the Sektet Boat go round about thee . . .1395

This, then, is the only sense in which the central  sun “moves”:  he sails around  the enclosure  , , , , while yet remaining em hetep, “at rest” or “in one place.” The ship is thus “the Boat of Rest [Hetep].”1396

O God Re, grant thou that the Osiris Nu may travel on in thy boat em hetep.1397

Let me embark in thy boat, O Re, em hetep.1398

Thy resting place is the barge of Khepri.1399

Agreeing with this view of the ship and pathway are the many hymns and liturgies which describe the boat of heaven navigating the circular ocean. (As earlier observed, this revolving river was the circle of the Aten .)

I have made my way and gone round the heavenly ocean on the path of the bark of Re.1400 Lo, I sail the great Bark on the Stream of the god Hetep.1401

Other hymns similarly depict the ship going around the “Lake of the Tuat,” “the Pool of Maat,” or “the Pool of Fire.”1402

This cosmic ocean, lake, or river means the circular womb (or body) of the mother goddess. Hence, the goddess Nut, the enclosure around the sun-god Re, takes the form of the circumambient sea, and numerous reliefs show the sun-god’s boat sailing over the body of the goddess. “I am a Sahu, who assigneth the bounds as he saileth round the starry throng of Heaven, the body of my mother Nut,” states the Book of the Dead.1403

But it is not sufficient to identify the mother goddess as the pathway of the crescent-ship, for the crescent and enclosure are one: the ship is the goddess. Though Nut is the “pathway,” the deceased king beseeches the goddess: “Row me, O mother of mine;1404  tow me, O abode of mine.” “O Boat of the sky . . . O Boat of Nut.”1405

Similarly, the “ship of Hathor,” as stated by Bleeker, was “the expression of her being. When the boat was carried in procession, it was the dramatization of the deity’s hierophany.”1406 One of the names of the Hathor-ship is “mistress of love”; it is called “the boat which exalts her beauty.”1407 A ship was also the symbol of the goddess Isis.1408 The dweller in the primeval womb is the captain of the ship.

A survey of ship symbolism in other lands will reveal the same identity. The womb of the Sumerian Inanna is “a ship.”1409 “The ship of the brilliant off-spring” was an epithet of the Babylonian goddess Bau.1410 In Hindu myth the goddesses Ila, Isi, Lacshmi, and Parvati are synonymous with the ship Argha,1411 transporting the great father (Manu, Shiva, Brahma) over the waters. Bergelmir—the Norse mythical giant—“was born in a boat”1412 (i.e., boat = womb). The Latin goddess Minerva “was surnamed Ergane, from Ereg or Erech, the ‘ark’; under which title she was  venerated both in Laconia, and in Boeotia,” Faber tells us.1413 The Celtic Goddess Ceridwen takes the form of a ship,1414 and the ship was the symbol of the old Latin goddess Ceres (Demeter), the Phrygian goddess Cybele, and the Phoenician goddess Ashtoreth.1415

 

The ship, in other words, is part and parcel of the circumpolar enclosure. And the identity finds confirmation in all mythical formulations of the enclosure:

The World-Ship. The Egyptian ship is “the Barge of Earth.” “O gods who carry the Barge of Earth, who support the barge of the Tuat,” proclaims the Book of Gates.1416

While the name of the Hindu goddess Ida (or (Ila) means “the world,” she is depicted as a floating ship; Stonehenge, the famous Druidic monument, was called at once “the circle of the World,” “the enclosure of the ship-goddess Ceridwen,” and the “Ark of the World.”1417

The ship-goddess is none other than the mother earth in heaven.

The Island-Ship. Ancient history is filled with legends of floating, paradisal islands, of which the Greek Delos and Hindu “island of the Moon” are noteworthy examples. The Italian floating isle of Cotyle; the Egyptian floating island of Chemnis, described by Herodotus; and the Celtic floating island of Snowdon suggest a common theme.1418

The tradition of the island-ship receives remarkable expression in the Roman island of Tiber, which, as a monument to Asclepius, was fashioned with a breastwork of marble into the form of a ship, its upper part imitating the stern and its lower part the bow.1419 Fig. 94, taken from Carl Kerenyi’s Asklepios, shows the ancient form of Tiber Island as reconstructed by a sixteenth-century draftsman.1420 Symbolized is the island of the blessed resting within the vast crescent of the cosmic ship.

 

94.   The city-ship of Tiber island, as reconstructed by a draftsman in the sixteenth century.

The City-Ship. The Egyptians commemorated the ship’s daily revolution by fashioning an image of the great god’s barge, placing it on a sledge-shaped stand, and dragging it around the walls of the city1421—for the city wall denoted the primeval rampart, the path of the ship. “This Great God travels in this city, on the water,” states one text.1422 Thus, the Mesopotamian Surripak is “the  city of the Ship,” corresponding to Homer’s Mycenae, the “ark-city.” The Greek cities of Thebes, Argos, and Berytus are connected by Faber with the ancient “ship” names theba, argha, and baris or barit.1423

The Temple-Ship. Just as the Egyptians conveyed the sacred ship around the wall of the city so did they also pull it around the wall of the temple, in imitation of the cosmic ship which coursed daily around the great god’s dwelling. Egyptian illustrations depict the shrine as an inseparable part of the boat. And the texts confirm this connection: “The Sektet boat receiveth fair winds, and the heart of him who is in the shrine thereof rejoiceth.”1424

A Sumerian hymn to the Kes temple equates the dwelling with “the princely Magur-boat, floating in the sky.”1425

Good temple, built on a good place, Kes temple, built on a good place,

Like [or as] the princely Magur-boat, floating in the sky. Like the pure Magur-boat . . .

Like the boat of heaven, foundation of all the lands, Cabin of the banda-boat which shines from the beaches, Temple, roaring like an ox, bellowing like a breed bull.1426

The Greeks designated a temple and a ship by the same word, naus or naos. Our word nave (from the Latin navis) possesses the dual significance of a temple and a ship.1427

The Wheel-Ship. One of the most unnatural aspects of the great god’s “chariot” (wheel) is that it functions also as a ship. In commemoration of the god’s remarkable vehicle, the ancients often placed the sacred ship on wheels, drawing it on dry land. Scandinavian rock carvings depict the “wheel of the sun” resting in a cosmic boat (fig. 93), and from Assyria to Britain to Polynesia images of cosmic ships either contain wheels or are set on wheels. The vehicle of the Chinese Huang-ti was both a ship and a chariot.1428 Similarly, the Sumerian magur-boat receives the appellation “chariot.” Cosmic ship and world wheel are one.

 

95.   Egg of Lunus.

 

96. Atum, seated within the Aten, sails in the ship of the

The Egg-Ship. “The god Lunus of Heliopolis and Carrhae,” writes Faber, “was an egg, on the top of which rested a crescent formed like a boat”1429 (fig. 95). But the god whom classical writers translated as Lunus was the Egyptian Aah, or Thoth, whose hieroglyph was the crescent-enclosure , and one can reasonably assume that, in accord with this symbol, the egg originally stood within, or upon, the crescent boat. Thus the Hindus knew the ship Argha as the lower half of a primeval egg which floated on the waters of Chaos.1430

The Eye-Ship. An Egyptian Coffin Text speaks of “the barge, the Eye of thy father.”1431 Elsewhere one finds, “I am the Great One in the midst of his Eye, sitting and kneeling in the great barge of Khepri [the Turning One].”1432 “O you who are in the Eye of the Bark of the God.”1433 In precise accord with such language the symbolic Eye was regularly inscribed upon ships of Egypt (fig. 96). Interestingly, the same symbol appears on the Greek Argo. A Phoenician terra-cotta model of a galley from Amathus reveals the central Eye upon its prow.1434  The Eye occurs also on Chinese boats.1435

The Vase-Ship. Reflecting the identity of the ship and receptacle is the English word vessel, meaning both “container” and “ship.” The German Schiff means, at once, “ship” and “water container,” and the roots of the German Kanne, “pot,” and Kahn, “boat,” are identical.1436

In Egyptian symbolism, Piankoff tells us, “The jar is the cradle and at the same time a vessel for crossing the celestial waters.”1437 The receptacles in which Hindu priests offered fruits and flowers to the gods were called arghas. But  the Argha was the ship on the cosmic sea.1438

The Shield-Ship. Norse mythology knows the “shield-god” Ull, the son of Thor’s wife Sif by an unknown father. “The shield, according to the skalds, was ‘the ship of Ull,’ that on which he traveled—a reference to a lost mythology . . .” writes MacCulloch. 1439 Similarly, King Arthur’s magic shield Prydwen served as the hero’s ship.1440

The Throne-Ship. In the Pyramid Texts the king ascends to the “throne which is in your bark, O Re.”1441 And the Book of the Dead locates the throne in the same ship: “I shall advance to my throne which is in the boat of Re. I shall not be molested, and I shall not suffer shipwreck from my throne which is in the boat of Re, the mighty one.”1442

The Serpent (Dragon)-Ship. G.E. Smith writes: “The custom of employing the name ‘dragon’ in reference to a boat is found in places as far apart as Scandinavia and China . . . In India the Makara, the prototype of the dragon, was sometimes represented as a  boat which was looked upon as a fish-avatar of Vishnu, Buddha or some other deity.”1443

 

Numerous Egyptian sources identify the ship with the cosmic serpent—who is also the “pathway” traversed by the boat. The Book of the Dead, for example, describes the ship sailing over the “back” of the serpent-dragon Apepi. 1444 A dragon-like creature often serves as a ship in Mesopotamian cylinder seals, just as the serpentine Chronos forms the path of the ship of Helios

One could, of course, endlessly expand the list of such connections between the enclosure and the ship. One might even say that the ship has no independent existence apart from the enclosure.

Nor can one ignore the widespread connection of the great god’s ship with the cosmic mountain. In accord with the archaic  forms    and  , the ship rests on the mountaintop, providing the Mount with its cleft summit. From Egypt to Mesopotamia to Scandinavia one finds the images of the ship brought into connection with the pillared crescent . Fig. 101f, from southwest Norway can be compared to a prehistoric drawing from Egypt (fig. 102f) In the latter instance the pillared crescent is shown twice, while one end of the ship terminates in a crescent-enclosure .

For a more formal version of the ship and Mount I offer details from two illustration in the Book of the Dead (fig. 97). In both drawings the ship, in the form of a double serpent, rests upon the Primeval Hill. While one shows the throne within the ship, the other shows the steps of the Primeval Hill: “I have reached the high portals of the Entourage of Re, who reckon up the pillared bark,” announces the king in a Coffin Text.1445

The subject is a revolving ship, traversing a circle around the summit of the cosmic mountain, , , , . That is, the Mount serves as the axis of the ship’s revolution: “I assume my pure seat which is in the bow of the Bark of Re. It is the sailors who row Re, and it is the sailors who convey Re round about the Mount of Glory, and it is they who will convey me round about the Mount of Glory.”1446 “Hail, Only One! behold thou art in the Sektet boat as it goeth round about the Mount of Glory.”1447

When the texts describe the god “sailing over the supports of Shu,”1448 or engaged in his “voyage over the Leg of Ptah,”1449 they do not depart from the integrated symbolism of the world pillar, for the supports of Shu ) and the leg of Ptah refer to one and the same cosmic column.

It is surely significant that in both Egypt and Mesopotamia the cosmic pillar appears as the “mooring post” of the great god’s ship. What the Sumerians called dimgal (Babylonian tarkullu) and the Egyptians mena or menat may be translated either as the “Binding Post” or “Mooring Post.” The Egyptian image of the menat is , depicting the enclosed sun-cross atop the cosmic pillar; but menat is a common term for the post to which the ship of heaven is tied or moored, and the verb mena means “to tie the boat to the post.”

One can also understand the axis-pillar as the ship’s mast. We earlier noted that the great father, considered as an extension of the Mount, becomes the central (third) peak rising between the two peaks of the right and left. When one views the crescent (two peaks) as the ship of heaven the equivalence of the Mount and the ship’s “mast” becomes self-evident. The general tradition is observed by Faber: “A vast centrical mountain formed the mast or boss of the mundane boat: and the great father, rising out of the sacred umbilicus of the arkite world, supplied to it the place of a mast. That mountain was the hill of paradise.” 1450 The Hindu symbol of the ship on the mountaintop, according to Faber, is the trident of Shiva, composed of a rod or staff surmounted by a “lunette”  with a spike rising in its centre. The trident, he states, denotes “the ship Argha under  its sidereal form of a crescent with Shiva standing in the midst of it and supplying the place of a mast.”1451

This identity of the ship’s mast and the axis-pillar is also noted by Coomaraswamy, who relates an introductory verse of the Dasakumaccrita, listing “the mast of the ship of the earth” as an aspect of “the axis of the universe.” In the construction of Hindu stupas the universe axis was represented by a central finial often extending upward to an impressive height. The column bore the title “sky-scraping” yasti, or “mast.”1452

It is noteworthy also that the Sumerian dimgal, the “mooring post” or “binding post,” often receives the translation “ship’s mast.”1453 In our world a mast and a mooring post are wholly distinct, but in the symbolism of the cosmic ship and mountain they are strictly synonymous, as we should expect.

By understanding the ship’s mast as an extension of the cosmic mountain one perceives a deeper meaning in the steps which rise in the centre of the Egyptian boat illustrated below (fig. 97). The steps, as the most common Egyptian symbol of the Primeval   Hill,

 

 

here replace the ship’s mast. And it is no accident, for while the Egyptian     khet means “steps”                (Primeval Hill), khet also means “ship’s mast” (Primeval Hill = steps = mast = Primeval Hill). The symbolism becomes all the more fascinating when one discovers that the Hindus identified the steps or pyramid as both the polar Mount Meru and the mast of the ship Argha.

 

97.   Two Egyptian versions of the cosmic ship and Primeval Hill

Such integrated symbolism underlines the fundamental relation of the crescent-ship to the cosmic mountain. Faber thus concludes: “Here we may perceive the reason why the pagans deemed those mountains peculiarly sacred, which branched out at their summits into either two or three smaller peaks or tumuli. They considered them, in the one case, as naturally shadowing out the holy hill with the navicular Moon resting on its top, and in the other case, as still being a physical copy of the same holy hill surmounted by the Moon, but the Moon now rendered complete by the addition of the centrical mast or pilot . . . ”1454

It  follows  from  this  line  of  evidence  that  the  Egyptian  mountain  signs   and   offering a natural representation of the two- or three-peaked summit—must have possessed the same import as the ship of  heaven; both the ship and the cleft summit had their reference in the crescent, visually united to the celestial column so as to form the image . The ship on the mountaintop merges with the two peaks of the right and left. Consistent with this overlapping imagery are those prehistoric Egyptian vase paintings depicting the  cosmic ship bearing the mountain sign .1455

It is, of course, the universal opinion of Egyptologists that the mountain glyph represents two geographical peaks real or imaginary, from which the solar orb rises each morning.

But if the analysis set forth here is correct, the twin peaks of the Mount, being synonymous with the ship of heaven, must have revolved daily around the sun-god’s enclosure—in flagrant contradiction of natural geography!

 

98. The twin-peaked Khut , depicted as an inseparable part of the cosmic

Could the Egyptians have believed that the cleft summit sailed with, or as, the cosmic ship? Actually, it was not uncommon for the Egyptian artists to place the Khut (Mount of Glory ) within the revolving ship, proclaiming the essential identity of the two images (fig. 98). Of this identity Clark provides two examples. In each case the Aten rests between the peaks of the right and left, which in turn sit squarely in the cosmic ship.

Responding  to  the  first  instance,  Clark  calls  the  cleft  hill   the “eastern horizon,” adding that “this hill is incongruously placed in the solar boat.”1456 In the second illustration the Aten “rests on the twin-peaked mountain of sunrise. Against all verisimilitude this figure, mountain and all, is being conveyed across the waters of the heavenly ocean in a boat.”1457 As bizarre as this sailing mountaintop may appear to conventional mythologists, it is, to us, one of several independent proofs that the mountain sign  means simply the revolving Saturnian crescent, here rendered naturalistically in its mythical form as two peaks. When the texts say that the god “sails round about in the Khut ,” they mean literally that he sails within the cleft peak as in a ship. Of course, to reckon with these concepts one must abandon once and for all the standard translation of Khut as “horizon.” The twin peaks are anything but a fixture of the local landscape. (Though the most common position of the mountain image is upright, some illustrations depict it in an inverted position , again contradicting geography. Moreover, the distinction between the upright and inverted positions of the revolving twin peaks is crucial to the symbolism of the archaic “day” and “night,” as I shall show.

 

Equally important is the relation  of the ship to the cosmic  twins. The image   tells us that the ship itself divides the enclosure into two portions of light and shadow. Accordingly, though the Egyptian word At denotes the boat of heaven, the same word means “to divide, bisect.” The language conforms precisely to the cosmology of the crescent- enclosure, half dark, half light.

But the Egyptians also identified the ship with the twins Isis-Nephthys, the “two eyes” (the left  and right  positions of the revolving crescent).1458 “Thy right eye is in the Sektet boat, and thy left eye is in the Atet boat,” declares the Book of the Dead.1459 In the ritual for the deceased, a chapter of the Book of the Dead is to be “said over a Bark of Re coloured in pure green. And thou shall place a picture of the deceased at the prow thereof. And make a Sektet boat on the right side of it and an Atet boat on the left side of it.”1460 Together, the boats of the left and right compose the protective enclosure or bond, represented by the shen .

In its every feature, then, the great god’s ship conforms to the revolving Saturnian crescent—enclosing the central sun, resting upon the cosmic mountain, and dividing the circumpolar enclosure into divisions of light and shadow.

The Crescent-Arms

To terrestrial observers gazing up the axis-pillar, the Saturnian crescent appeared as two outstretched arms reaching around and holding aloft the crescent enclosure .

No one considering the image of the sun-in-crescent resting atop the cosmic pillar   will have any difficulty understanding why the crescent came to be viewed as the outstretched arms of the great mother, or of the heaven-sustaining god.

Of course, it is only in combination with the central sun and pillar that the crescent could acquire this significance. Nothing in our crescent moon, for example, could possibly suggest the upraised arms of a human- like figure. In ancient art, however, the crescent is often located behind the shoulders of a divinity (as suggested by the form ) and in certain cases replaces the arms. (In fig. 99 I offer several examples from the Americas.)

In fig. 100 the Hindu twins Jagan-Nath and Bal-Rama, bearing the respective black and white countenances of Shiva and Vishnu (with whom they are identified), stand to the right and left of the goddess Subhadra, a form of Devi. The “body” of each of the three deities appears to be composed of two eggs ([twofold] egg = “body”); upon the bodies of Jagan-Nath and Bal-Rama rests a crescent- like form and in each crescent appears the head of the deity. Commenting on this image, Faber writes: “The crescent itself exhibits the rude semblance of arms, as the twofold egg does that of a body: but a sort of standard attached to the frame on which the three divinities are seated, sufficiently shows that the apparent arms are really a lunette, for the standard displays in a black background the mystic crescent with a circular ball within it representing the head of the deity.”1461

 

99. (a, b) Columbian pictographs; (c) Bolivian pictograph; (d) Brazilian pictograph; (e) Arapahp sign for

“person”; (f) North American goddes

 

100. Hindu twins, Jagan-Nath and Bal-Rama, with semicircular arms, stand to the right and left of the goddess

A more pure form of the crescent- or horned-arms occurs in Scandinavian rock drawings, repeatedly exhibiting the image along with numerous variations which present the semi-circular shape alternately as horns or as outstretched arms of more human-like forms (fig. 101). This mixture of images, in fact, leaves the archaeologists undecided as to whether, in the simple form , it is arms, or horns, that are horn-like arms, or arms extended upward to form a crescent. In other instances, the human figure does not stand in the boat, but holds the boat aloft on upraised arms ( fig. 101a, b). Moreover, in some cases the ship rests on the human shoulders in such a way as to replace the arms (fig. 101c, d).

 

101. (a, b, c, d) In numerous Scandinavian rock drawings the cosmic ship either rests on the upraised arms of a Heaven Man or actually forms the god’s arms; (e, f) In other drawings from the same religion a pillared

crescent stands in the ship.

 

102. Prehistoric Egyptian images of the cosmic ship alternately show the Heaven Man (with upraised arms) or the pillared crescent standing in the

 

103. Predynastic Egyptian figurines

 

104. Cretan mother goddess

 

105. Symbols of the Phoenician goddess Tanit

 

106. Hittite image

The cosmic divinity with upraised arms will be found in all quarters of the world (figs. 103, 104, 105 & 106). Most crucial are the associations of such figures with the axis-pillar and enclosure. The mythical Afrite of Arabian myth was an apostate angel, “tall and black” (Saturn = “black” planet), whose trunk formed a vast pillar, his arms stretching heavenward.

Compare the description of the Hindu Manu, the “glorious sage” and first king: “With arms uplifted and poised on one leg, he, the king of men, practiced hard austerities in the Badari forest, named Vishala. And there he did arduous penance for ten thousand years with his head downwards and his eyes unwinking.”1462

Of the Iranian Mithra, the Zend Avesta declares: “With his arms lifted up towards Immortality, Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, drives forward . . . in a beautiful chariot [the world wheel] that drives on, ever-swift, adorned with all sorts of ornaments, and made of gold.”

I pose the question: are the upraised arms an accidental convention, or an integral component of the Saturnian image ? A conclusive answer is provided by Egyptian sources.

The Ka-Arms

One of the most familiar Egyptian terms is ka, the symbol for which is two upraised arms . Though the word ka occurs with great frequency in the hieroglyphic texts, few writers can agree on a tangible meaning. Budge confesses the general lack of agreement on the subject: “The exact meaning of this word [ka] is unknown, but it has been translated by double, image, genius, subconscious self, natural disposition, abstract personality, character, mind, etc.; all these meanings are suggested by their contexts, but the real meaning of the word has yet to be discovered.”1463

“The closest approximation to the Egyptian notion of Ka is ‘vital force,’” writes Frankfort. “The qualification ‘vital’ frees it from the precision of the natural sciences, which would, of course, be an anachronism: and the combination ‘vital force’ may stand for a somewhat vague popular notion without mechanistic implications. The Ka, according to this view, should be impersonal and should be present in varying strength in different persons or in the same person at different times.”1464

In none of the common interpretations is the Ka regarded as a visible power. Instead, the experts tend to treat the Ka as a hidden source of life. Clark tells us that “the Ka is a symbol of the transmission of life power from the gods to man. But it is not only the act, it is also the source of this power. Everyone is a receiver of divine power and everyone is an individual, so each has his own Ka.”1465

I am not prepared to argue that these modern-sounding definitions are wholly wrong—only that they focus on derived, rather than concrete meanings. In its original sense the Ka is exactly what its glyph indicates—two upraised arms ! The ancients saw the two arms of the Ka, and every aspect of the symbolism springs from a once visible relationship of these arms to the great god and his dwelling.

In recording the Saturnian configuration  nothing could have been more natural than the interpretation of the crescent as two arms, straining upward. To present the  “arms”  in  human  form,  is,  of  course,  the only  possible  way to

 

express pictorially this mythical interpretation of the crescent (just as the only way to depict the crescent’s mythical form as horns was

to draw it as horns or to place the crescent-enclosure on the head of a Bull).

To test the proposed connection  of the Ka-arms   with the Saturnian image  , several questions require investigation:

Do Egyptian sources locate the central sun within the Ka-arms? Are the cosmic ship and horns identified with these outstretched arms? Do the Ka-arms reach around the enclosure? Do the arms constitute the cleft summit  of the world mountain? Is the Ka one half of a twin circle?

 

107. (a) The Ka; (b) The Ka resting on the primordial “perch”; (c) The Ka embracing the royal “name.”

 

108.   The arms of the Abyss supporting the “Aten.”

On each of these questions, Egyptian sources yield a clear-cut reply.

1. While most analyses discuss the Ka as a (hidden) dimension of the human personality, Egyptian sources consistently locate the Ka not in this world, but among the gods. The point is noticed by Breasted: “ . . . The ka was not an element of the personality, as is so often stated. It seems to me indeed from a study of the Pyramid Texts, that the nature of the ka has been fundamentally misunderstood . . . It was in the world of the hereafter the he [the Ka] chiefly if not exclusively had his abode . . .”1466

When the king dies “he goes to his Ka in the sky,”1467 and here, in heaven, the Ka protects him from the destructive demons of Chaos.1468  But why is this protective genius portrayed as two outstretched arms ? The reason is that the heaven attained by the deceased king is the dwelling of the central sun, who resides within the embrace of two shining arms raised aloft in the Abyss. “This god is like this,” states one mythological text: “Two arms guard the body of this god.”1469 Another invokes Atum shining forth from “the arms of Aker.”1470 The great god Re “is like this on the arms of the Mysterious One.”1471 “The Aten is in the Tuat. The arms of the Mysterious Face come out and lift it up.”1472 reads another text.

Thus Osiris “rests” within the two arms of the Ka: “Hail, O Osiris, thy ka hath come unto thee and . . . thou resteth therein in thy name of Ka-Hetep.”1473  “Thy father Tatunen lifteth thee up and he stretcheth out his two hands behind thee.”1474

In truth, the saying “to go to his ka” means to attain heaven and thus to reside in the protective embrace of the heaven-sustaining god .

 

O Re-Atum, your son comes to you, the King comes to you; raise him up, enclose him in your embrace . . .1475

It is pleasant for me . . . within the arms of my father, within the arms of Atum.1476

O Atum, set your arms about the King . . . O Atum, set your protection over this King . . .1477

Go up on high, and it will be well with you, it will be pleasant for you in the embrace of your father, in the embrace of Atum.1478

To represent the union of the king with the outstretched arms of heaven the Egyptians depicted the Ka  enclosing the cartouche or royal name of the Horus-king (fig. 107c). In the hieroglyphs the Ka-arms  signify “to embrace” and “to protect.” “The royal Ka put his arms around the Horus name to protect it from harm,” notes Clark. 1479 There is no need to seek out hidden metaphysical implications in this symbolism, for the Ka was in every way an emblem of the visible enclosure, the protective rampart in heaven.

2. That the Ka-arms pertain to the “embracing” crescent will explain why the sun-god sails on the two arms; the same text which describes Re “like this on the arms of the Mysterious One,” declares, “This Great God sails over this cavern [the hollow of the Tuat] on the arms of the Mysterious ”1480

A spell from the Coffin Texts has the king appearing “in the bark of the morning . . . in the arms of Anup.”1481 And Osiris sails “on the two arms of Horus in his [Horus’] name of ‘Henu-bark.’”1482 This equation of the ship and the outstretched arms finds repeated illustration in the cosmic scenes depicted on coffins and papyri.

It follows from this identity, of course, that the arms of the Ka are synonymous with the luminous horns of the celestial bull. And here lies the simple explanation why the Egyptian word for “bull” is also ka, written with the same arms  , to which the determinatives    are added. (The subject is the generative Bull of Heaven.)1483

I know the secret of Hieraconopolis.

It is the two hands of horns and what is in them.1484

The embracing hands or arms mean the same thing as the horns.

3. If the outstretched arms, as suggested by the configuration , reach around the circumpolar enclosure, then “to go to his Ka” must signify the king’s rebirth in the primeval womb. Did the Egyptians identify the Ka-arms with the mother goddess?

“When the dead king was placed in his coffin,” writes Piankoff, “he was placed between the arms of his mother Nut.”1485 The king’s return to the mother womb is expressed in the Pyramid Texts:

Thou art given to thy mother Nut, in her name coffin; She embraces thee, in her name sarcophagus.1486

Nut, the “coffin,” means Nut, the womb of primeval birth (or rebirth). And to dwell in the womb is to reside within the embracing arms of the goddess. Thus, the very goddess in whose womb shines the central sun is also described enclosing and protecting the sun, or king, with outstretched arms.

I am thy mother Nut. My arms encircle thee in life and health.1487

The arms of Nut who bore you are about you so that your beauty may be upraised.1488 Words spoken by Isis the Divine:

I have come, I encircle my son with my arms . . . I shall be his protection eternally.1489

. . . The goddess Maat embraceth thee.1490

 

109. Nut embracing the Aten with outstretched

In apparent defiance of nature, the texts proclaim that the Ka-arms give birth to the sun-god. The Pyramid Texts extol “the Great One who came into being in the arms of Her who bore the god.”1491 In the Instruction of Ptahhotep appears the statement, “He is thy son, whom thy Ka hath begotten for thee.”1492 And elsewhere we read: “Thy mother bringeth thee forth upon her hands, that thou mayest give light to the whole circumference which the Aten enlighteneth.”1493

In the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amon appear four gold coffins containing the extracted viscera, each coffin being represented by a goddess, and symbolically enclosing one of the Four Sons of Horus. The inscriptions upon the lids of the coffins leave no doubt as to the identity of the enclosing arms and the protective womb:

Words spoken by Isis: I close my arms over that which is in me. I protect Imesty who is in me, Imesty, Osiris King Neb-Kheperu-Re, justified before the Great God.

Words spoken by Nephthys: I embrace with my arms that which is in me, I protect Hapy of Osiris King Neb- Kheperu-Re, justified before the Great God.

Words spoken by Neith: I encircle with my arms that which is in me, I protect Dua-mutef who is in me, Dua- mutef, Osiris King Neb-Kheperu-Re, justified before the Great God.

Words spoken by Selkit: My two arms are on what is in me. I protect Keb-senuf who is in me, Keb-senuf, Osiris King Neb-Kheperu-Re, the justified one.1494

The inscriptions explicitly declare that the arms of the goddess enclose the god-king within the womb. That the goddess (womb) is the arms, and that these arms are those of the Ka, is confirmed by a design in the funerary temple of King Seti I (fig. 110). The design shows a female figure embracing the king. On the head of the goddess stands the two arms of the Ka within which is written the goddess’ name.1495

In depicting the Ka, Egyptian artists were obviously constrained by the awkwardness which would result from the human-like representation of the image as a man-child within the arms of a god or goddess. In our world one does not embrace a child with uplifted arms. To accommodate the primal image to a natural anthropomorphic mode of representation, the artists showed the arms twice—first, as the arms of the human, or personified Ka, embracing and protecting the man-child; and second, as upraised arms placed upon the head of the Ka-divinity. It is the latter representation which expresses the cosmic form of the protective embrace.

Hence, the goddess Isis, often depicted enclosing her son Horus upon her lap (womb), is also shown standing erect with arms held aloft (fig. 111). Since the uplifted arms, by Egyptian symbolism, mean

 

110.   The divinized Ka embraces the man-child

 

111. The Egyptian goddess Isis, whose upraised arms enclosed the central

“protect” and “embrace,” one can be certain that the raised arms of Isis pertain directly to Isis’ role as the “protectress” of the sun- god. Cosmic symbolism was not determined by what is “natural” in the human world so much as by the literal form of the Saturn apparition .

The outstretched arms of the Egyptian great god or goddess hold aloft and encircle the celestial earth.

O King, you have enclosed every god within your arms, their lands and all their possessions. O King, you are great and round as the circle which surrounds the Hau-nebut.1496

The earth is raised on high under the sky by your arms, O Tefenet.1497

An identical picture occurs in the Iranian Zend Avesta, where Mithra, “with arms lifted up towards immortality,” encloses  “the boundary of the earth.”

And do thou, O Mithra! encompassing all this around, do thou reach it, all over, with thy arms.1498

Pointing to the same relation is the common Egyptian phrase “house of the Ka.”1499 To dwell in the cosmic temple is to rest within the arms, and the texts thus speak of “the two arms of the temple.”1500

4. Among the Egyptian gods none is more often depicted with upraised arms than the pillar-god Shu, between whose arms rests the primeval sun Atum, or Re. Egyptian reliefs regularly portray Shu standing erect and sustaining the body (womb) of the goddess Nut with his arms held in virtually the same position of those of the Ka-symbol . The arms which enclose the sun-god belong to the cosmic mountain. Thus we read:

The mountain will hold out its arms to him and the living Ka’s will accompany him.1501

 

 

The hieroglyphic symbol of the Shu-pillar or mountain is called “the two pillars of heaven.” The two pillars, in other words, are really one pillar, with two arms. Hence Re, who shines between the mountain peaks of the right and left, also rests atop the forked pillar of Shu, whose two secondary supports are the embracing arms of the Ka. “Thou seest Re upon the pillars which are the arms of heaven,” reads the Book of the Dead.1502

In the Papyrus of Mut-hetep the embracing arms are those of Tatunen, the acknowledged personification of the Primeval Hill. “Thy father Tatunen, placing his hands behind thee, raiseth thee up.”1503 What are these two arms of the Primeval Hill other than the two peaks of the right and left?

Most relevant in this connection is the hieroglyphic symbol for  “living Re” . The image not only shows the sun-god resting within the upraised Ka-arms, but presents the arms as an extension of the heavens pillar, so that the entire configuration suggests a human form virtually identical to that of Shu in the above-mentioned illustrations. The same image in yet more human form is offered by the hieroglyph  , symbol of the elevated  god and  the cosmic summit.  And in the glyph   the Egyptians depicted the personified pillar holding aloft the symbol of heaven            . What is clear from a survey of the related texts and symbols  is that the Egyptians conceived the arms of the Mount or god in visible terms. When the king, in a Pyramid Text, beseeches the god, “O Shu, may your two arms be behind Teti,” one witnesses the influence of things seen, not abstract speculation.

In the signs , , and , we have three closely related ways of representing the prototypal form     , and it  is this prototype which enables one to see why the Egyptians celebrated the Ka-arms as the two peaks of the Mount of  Glory.  The  Ka-sign    and  the mountain sign  gave  pictorial  expression  to  two equally compelling interpretations of the pillared crescent. Once one perceives this underlying identity of the arms and the twofold peak, it is impossible not to notice that the Egyptians themselves remembered the connection through many centuries (even if they did not understand it perfectly). Repeatedly the artists showed two arms extended upward from the cleft peak (fig. 112). As is usually the case with the most significant symbolic relationships, the union of the arms and two peaks is set forth in spite of its seeming mockery of the natural order.

 

112. Kheprer, residing in the Aten, appears between the two arms, which correspond to the two peaks of the Khut.

The equivalence of the Ka-arms and two peaks is confirmed by other symbols also. One of the Egyptian names of the twofold Mount of Glory was Aker, drawn as a twin-headed lion .1504 Just as the Aten rests on the two peaks of the Khut , so also does it lie on the “back of Aker.” In one text the sun-god Re commands Aker, “O, give me your arms, receive me . . . I give light for you, I dispel your darkness.” 1505 The arms of Aker can be nothing other than the two peaks from which the sun-god shines forth each day, for the Book of Caverns says that the “One of the Tuat goes forth [shines] from the arms of Aker.”1506  The same source also invokes:

Duati, the Infernal One, who comes out of the arms of Aker.1507 Atum, who comes out of the arms of Aker. Ifeny, who comes out of the arms of Aker.1508

 

 

Though the terminology will offend the modern ear, it is perfectly consistent with the cosmic image    to     speak of the “two arms of the mountain,” and this is exactly what the Egyptians meant by the phrase “the arms of Aker.”

5. It remains to be asked, then, what was the relationship of the crescent-arms to the cosmic twins. Certainly one cannot ignore the fact that the Egyptian ka is often translated “double” or “twin.” “The ka of the king is his twin; it accompanies him through life as a protective genius, it acts as his twin and his protector in ”1509

The imagery of the king has its origin in the image of the Universal Monarch. If the arms depicted by the Ka sign  refer to the Saturnian crescent, reaching halfway around the circumpolar enclosure, this in itself is sufficient to explain the Ka’s designation as the “twin.” In the configuration  the twin (or half the enclosure) is the two arms.

In accord  with the counterpoised  positions of the revolving  crescent (       and      , or  and ), Egyptian representations of the arms show alternating relationships to the central sun. While the upright position of the arms is very common in Egyptian art, one finds innumerable instances in which the arms embrace the Aten either from the right or left, or from above. Of the latter instance I give three examples (figs. 87, 113, 114). Like so many Egyptian representations, all of these examples juxtapose different mythical versions of the crescent. In the first ( fig. 81) we see the man-child sitting upon the mountain symbol  and resting within the enclosure of the Aten, here presented as a circular serpent with tail in mouth. This circle, in turn, rests upon the horns of a bull whose head is placed between the twin lions Shu and Tefnut, representing the peaks of the right and left. But reaching around half of the serpentine band from above are two arms—clearly the same arms which elsewhere embrace the Aten from below.

 

113, 114. To depict the full cycle of the “day” Egyptian artists showed the outstretched arms embracing the Aten alternately from above and from below.

It is my contention that such symbolism represents alternate phases of the archaic day, each “day” being marked by a full revolution of the crescent around the enclosure, as it passes from its position below  to an inverted position above  and back to below again.

As figures of the revolving crescent, the upright and inverted arms are synonymous with the cosmic twins, who personify the above and below (as well as the right and left). Just this connection of the arms with the twins is indicated in the Papyrus of Pa-di-Amon (fig. 113). The illustration shows the Aten in the centre flanked by the two goddesses. Two male figures are also present, one above and one below, each reaching around the Aten with outstretched arms, so that together the upright and inverted arms compose a complete enclosure—the circle of the cosmic twins. 1510 The same relationship of the upright and inverted arms to the circle of the Aten will be seen also in the Papyrus of Khonsu-Renep1511 (fig. 114).

Closely related are the symbolic representations which portray the arms alternately reaching round the Aten from the right and left. One such example occurs in the Papyrus of Khonsu-mes A. Here the arms are explicitly connected with the symbols of Abtet and Amentet, the two divisions of the celestial kingdom1512 (left-right).

 

115.   The twin goddesses Isis and Nephthys stand to the right and left of Osiris-Re, forming an enclosure with their arms.

Clearly, the counterpoised arms denote the cosmic twins, revolving daily round the Aten. The texts say as much when they locate the great god within the arms (or hands) of the twins. In a Coffin Text Atum recalls the beginning:

[At first] I lived with my two children, my little ones, the one before me, the other behind me . . .

I rose over them, but their arms were around me.

Similarly, one finds:

The arm of Horus is about you [and] the arm of Thoth, the two great gods have supported you.1513 You are raised aloft on the hands of Shu and Tefnut . . .1514

Isis and Nephthys salute thee, they sing songs of joy at thy rising [coming forth] in the boat, they protect thee with their hands.1515

Together the counterpoised arms of the twins form the protective enclosure—the womb giving birth to the central sun.

. . . The god is given birth by the sky upon the arms of Shu and Tefnut.1516

The symbolism of the outstretched arms meets every test of the Saturnian crescent. The arms take the form of a crescent enclosing the central sun. They are inseparable from the cosmic womb; they constitute the two peaks  of the world mountain; and they are identified directly with the celestial twins.

The Crescent-Wings

The same crescent which appeared to the ancients as upraised arms also received mythical interpretations as the extended wings of the great god or goddess.

Ancient Sumerian myths recall a monstrous bird called Imdugud hovering over the primeval waters, its wings outstretched. Imdugud (the Akkadian winged dragon Zu) was a form of Ningirsu or Ninurta, the planet Saturn.1517

In this primordial wind-bird or thunder-bird scholars recognize the prototype of the Teutonic Hraesvelgr, the winged god of the storm, and the Hindu eagle Garuda, whose wings were so great as to affect the cosmic revolutions. According to the Athapascans of North America a raven hovered over the waters generating claps of thunder by the movement of his wings.1518

Natives of Hawaii say that at the beginning of time, when only the ocean existed, a great white bird appeared in the highest heaven, the egg of the world resting between its outstretched wings.1519 Very similar is the Hebrew mythical bird Ziz, standing in mid-ocean. The Ziz was as monstrous as Leviathan, for while his ankles rested on our earth, his head reached the sky.1520

Though the relation is sometimes forgotten, the primeval winged beast originally appears either as the great god himself or as the god’s vehicle. When the Orphics celebrated the “Sun that soarest aloft on golden wings,” they hearkened back to

 

an age-old tradition. Among all of the great gods of antiquity it would be difficult to find a single figure who neither possesses wings nor rides upon wings.1521

If the Hebrew Yahweh “rides upon the wings of the wind,” the Hindu Vishnu is carried about on the shoulders of the eagle Garuda. The Hindu Agni, Mithra, Varuna, and Yama receive the title Suparna, meaning “strong-winged.” It is said that the outstretched wings of the Suparna embrace the Cosmos.1522 Also presented as winged gods are the Persian Mithra and Zurvan, the Hebrew and Phoenician El, the Greek Kronos, and all of the leading deities of ancient Egypt.

Anyone willing to look beneath the surface will find that the great god’s wings are much more than a contrived convenience enabling him to “fly.” To thoughtful observers the special role of the winged god presents many enigmas. In Egypt, for example, the hieroglyph for the great god Horus is a falcon, but the wings of the falcon, in early Egyptian art, do not convey the sense of “flight” (as one should expect, if the god acquired his wings for a “natural” purpose). Rather the wings—always outstretched— define the limits of the Cosmos, and it is not easy to see how the Egyptians could have arrived at this consistent notion through observation of what we call the natural world today. Horus is “the venerable bird in whose shadow is the wide earth; Lord of the Two Lands under whose wings is the circuit of heaven [the Cosmos].1523 Concerning this image of Horus, Frankfort writes, “ . . . The central problem, the relation between god and falcon, seems entirely insoluble.”1524

What powers did the ancients seek to represent by the spread wings of the divine eagle, hawk, or falcon—or the extended wings of the purely mythical “thunder-bird” described around the world? The Egyptians called the cosmic island of beginnings the “Great Foundation Ground of the Ruler of the Wing”1525 almost as if the Wing possessed a character of its own. The divinized Wing marched around the island, according to the texts.1526

Few comparative mythologists seem to have recognized that a common image of the cosmic bird prevails throughout the world,  and this  image  corresponds directly  to  the pillared  sun-in-crescent  . Rather than portray the winged beast either in flight or in a seemingly normal resting position, the artists regularly depicted it virtually standing on its tail feathers, with its wings spread upward to form a crescent.

 

116. Examples of the winged divinity on the cylinder seals of western

 

117. The primeval eagle, from the Mesopotamian city of

 

118. Egyptian eagle, with symbols of “life.”

 

120. The American Indian thunder-bird.

In figs. 116, 117, 118 & 120 I include examples from Western Asia to the Americas. The reader will see that certain of the instances are virtually indistinguishable—and all present the sacred bird in the same “unnatural” way.

In Homer’s hymn to Selene, the poet extols “the long-winged Moon.”1527 But does the lunar crescent alone suggest extended wings? It is only in connection with the cosmic form that the crescent’s role as wings takes on meaning. And this is the very crescent which the ancients also knew as the sacred horn, the ship, and the upraised arms.

As seen in fig. 121, the wings of the cosmic falcon enclose and protect the deified king, in precisely the same fashion as the Ka- arms. A review of the artistic tradition shows that the wings of the great god or goddess melt into the divinity’s extended arms in such a way as to become indistinguishable from them. The identity is also confirmed in Egyptian texts, where the arms of Re are called  “the two birds of Ptah.”1528 A text from the tomb of Ramesses VI invokes the great god’s “two wings, the arms of Tay.”1529

 

121. The cosmic falcon

 

122. The winged goddess Nut

 

123. Zuni winged goddess

 

124. Spartan goddess Artemis Orthia

Adding to the “unnatural” character of the winged divinity is the continual association of wings and horns. The great god may be called either a winged bull or a horned bird. Moreover, it is clear that the combination of the two images did not result from syncretism (a later merging of incompatible or once independent traditions). Frankfort acknowledges “the simultaneous validity of these views of the king,” insisting that the winged and horned aspects of the god are “a primitive feature and not the product of the syncretism of later times.” Noting this dual aspect of the god Horus and his mother-spouse Hathor, Frankfort writes: “The mingling of the falcon and cattle images in the relationship of Horus and Hathor is not due to syncretism. It recurs in the case of the war-god Monthu of Thebes, who was conceived as a falcon but was also manifest in the Buches bull. The royal titulary shows it, too, for  after

 

Thutmosis I the name which is crowned with the falcon and is called the Horus- or Ka-name regularly includes the epithet ‘strong bull.’ The palette of Narmer illustrates how little ancients were disturbed by this simultaneous use of the two images. It shows the king’s victory three times, once as a man destroying the enemy chief with his mace, once as the Horus falcon holding him in subjection with a rope passed through his nose, and once as a ‘strong bull’ demolishing enemy strongholds.”1530

If the Egyptians were not bothered by this paradoxical duality, it was for a simple reason: the great god’s shining horns were also his wings! This is why the Apis bull was pictured with outstretched wings upon its back1531 (fig. 76a) and why the portrait of the Bakha bull shows a vulture extending its wings over the bull’s hindquarters1532  (fig. 76b).

The same winged bull, of course, is common to Mesopotamian ritual (fig. 126) and passes into Hebrew cherubim, protectors of the divine throne. The wings of the cherubim “reached from one end of the world to the other.”1533

 

 

 

126. Assyrian winged bull

Further evidence is provided by the winged ship, which occurs in almost every segment of the world.1534 While it may not be immediately clear from the later, more fanciful versions of the bird-ship, it is abundantly clear in the earliest sources that the wings and the ship are the same thing. In the Egyptian Pyramid Texts, the expanded wings constitute the ship of the gods—just as the image  suggests:

O you gods who cross over on the wing of Thoth to yonder side of the Winding Waterway.1535

. . . Ferry me over, O Thoth, on the tip of your wing as Sokar who presides over the Bark of Righteousness.1536

O wings of Thoth, ferry me across, do not leave me boatless.1537

O Thoth . . . put me on the tip of your wing on yonder northern side of the Winding Waterway.1538

Surely it is no coincidence that the symbol of Thoth, the master of the wing-ship, was the crescent-enclosure . The wings of the winged god or goddess answer to the illuminated portion of the circumpolar band. The subject is a winged circle, as one discerns in numerous representations of the primeval sun’s dwelling. Whether it is the Egyptian Aten, or the Assyro-Babylonian enclosure of the sun, the Greek wheels of Ixion, Dionysus, or Triptolemus, the Hindu world wheel or Chakra, the Mexican “shield” of the sun-god—the enclosure consistently appears with wings and/or tail feathers. If  the ancients soon forgot the special form of the winged enclosure (i.e., ), they did not lose the general idea.

 

127.   The Egyptian winged Kheprer, the Turning One

 

128. The Assyrian winged circle

 

129. The Hindu Chakra or winged wheel of the “sun”

 

130. Inscription at Mehterhane, the Central Prison of Constantinople

 

131. Drawing from a thirteenth-century window in Auxerre catherdral

 

132. Mexican winged bird

 

133. Detail from 74 showing enclosed sun on back of bird

 

 

134.   (a) Persian Ahura Mazda, dwelling in the winged enclosure; (b) Assyrian winged god Asshur, in the winged enclosure. Note that both the Assyrian and Persian examples connect the god’s skirt with the tail

feathers. In the ancient Mesopotamian pictographs the “skirt” mean “mountain.”

 

135. Aztec shield, with tail feathers

 

136. Mesopotamian winged circles confirm (a) that the band encloses the sun-cross and (b) that the band displays a

 

137. Isis, protecting the sun-god with her extended wings

The relation of the wings to the enclosure is vital to any meaningful interpretation of the winged god or goddess. Surely we are not simply dealing with a venerated bird gradually translated into a god (as many authorities propose). From the beginning, the wings belonged to the Saturnian band. In many instances the artists show the great god residing within or issuing from the winged circle (figs. 134a & b).

In the symbolism of the Egyptian goddess Nut one sees the underlying identity of the outstretched wings and the cosmic womb. Though Nut personifies the band of the Cosmos, she is often depicted standing erect with arms and wings extended outward and upward (fig. 122) in striking accord with the prototypal form  . The spread wings are those which enclose and protect the central sun, for the king beseeches the goddess: “Mother Nut, spread thy wings over me, encircle (me) with thy arms in health and life that I may be inside thee, that thou (mayest) be my protection.”1539 To be embraced by the outspread wings is to dwell within the great goddess, in the womb. Daily the goddess “conceives you, she bears you, she puts you within her wing.”1540 Nothing could be more futile than attempting to resolve the enigmatic language in conventional (or “natural”) terms. But when referred to the overlapping images of the Saturnian configuration , the ritual terminology acquires an extraordinary precision. The outstretched and upraised wings actually do enclose the sun within the celestial womb.

No less remarkable is the location of the all-seeing Eye upon the crescent wing or wings: The Eye of Horus gleams upon the wing of Thoth.1541

The Eye of Horus is placed on the wing of his brother Set.1542

All figures of the primeval bird reveal a common feature: they dwell upon the cosmic mountain. Indeed, as already observed, it is the Mount, rendered as the “tail feathers,” which makes intelligible the common interpretation of the polar crescent as outstretched wings.

Egyptian myths say that at the dawn of the world the great god took the form of the Bennu bird or Phoenix, radiating light from its extended wings and perched atop the Primeval Hill. The Bennu was the “Soul” of Re, which means that it issued directly from Re, congealing out of the primeval matter, or waters. (Thus bennut means “matter” or “issue,” while bennu means the “bread” of the gods, the primeval matter organized into a circle.)

 

138.   Prehistoric Hopi image of winged earth mother.

 

139. Mesopotamian eagle supporting divine figure between its

The relation of the Primeval Hill to the Phoenix or Bennu is summarized by Clark: “Since the waters were in absolute darkness the emergence of God meant the coming of light, the first morning. For the Heliopolitans morning was marked by the  shining of light on an erect pillar or pyramidion on a support which could reflect the rays of the rising sun. At the beginning a light- bird, the Phoenix, had alighted on the sacred stand, known as the Benben, to initiate the great age of the visible God. The rising of the mound and the appearance of the Phoenix are not consecutive events but parallel statements, two aspects of the supreme creative moment.”1543 To the same elementary image belongs the winged Khepera, resting upon the tet or pillar of the Cosmos, and supporting the Aten with outstretched wings.1544 The Pyramid Texts speak of the “Mountain of the zehzeh-bird,”1545 or “the  Pillar of the zehzeh-bird,”1546

Similarly, the Sumerian Imdugud, who “looks down upon the mountain,”1547 was said to have his home on the northern Mount Masius; while his counterparts—the Persian Saena or Simurgh and the Hindu Garuda dwelt upon the polar mountains of Hera Berezaiti and Meru.1548 Accordingly, the Assyro-Babylonians consistently located the winged circle of the “sun” atop the cosmic pillar.1549 The natives of Northwest Siberia fix upon their symbols of the world pillar a wooden figure of a bird sometimes with two heads. The winged figures which so often adorn the summit of American Indian totem poles provide an obvious parallel.

 

140. Mesopotamian cylinder seals indicate the close relation of the “sun”-birds wings to the two peaks of the cosmic

Like all figures of the crescent, the expanded wings, alternately embracing the central sun from the left and from the right (or from above and below), appear in the role of the twins. The goddess Nut may be presented in the primary form ; but two secondary divinities flank the goddess to the right and left, extending their wings

 

toward each other so as to form a complete enclosure. These winged twins are equivalent to Isis and Nephthys, the “two kites” who, standing to the right and left, together enclose the sun-god within their wings.

A spell of the Coffin Texts reads:

Isis comes and Nephthys comes, one of them from the west [literally the right] and one of them from the east [literally the left], one of them as a kite and one of them as a screecher . . . They prevent Horus of the Two Lands from putrefying.1550

Compare this line from the Pyramid Texts:

. . . This King has become pure through the eye of Horus, his ill is removed by the Two Kites of Osiris.1551

To be purified and protected within the Eye  is to be made strong by the “Two Kites” of the left and right (   , ), whose counterpoised wings shadow out the full circle of the Eye. The same twin birds compose the crown:

O you two kites who are on the wings of Thoth, you two who are on the crown . . .1552

Thus the goddesses Isis and Nephthys are said to have placed themselves upon the head of the great god “as the two kites” and these, in turn, are identified as the two uraei serpents and the two Eyes—all figures of the bisected womb or enclosure.1553 And the proof of this identity is the very name of the “two kites.” They are the Tcherti, which means nothing more than the two halves of the tcher, the “enclosure” or “boundary,” of the Aten .

Interconnected Symbols

A comprehensive discussion of the Saturnian crescent’s wide-ranging mythical forms would require vastly more space than available here, but a brief summary should be sufficient to indicate the breadth of the symbolism. Supplementing the imagery discussed above are the following mythical versions of the crescent.

The Plant of Life

Egyptian sources relate that the original dwelling of the solitary god took the form of a shining lotus—called “the Great Lotus that issued from the pool in the Island of the Two Flames, the Province of the Beginning.” The lotus “initiated light” at the “First Occasion in the High Hill at the Beginning of Coming into Existence.”1554

According to the legend, the lotus sprang up from the watery abyss, emerging from the Khu (luminous matter) erupting from the creator. One of the Egyptian names for this plant of life was Nefer Tem (“the young or beautiful Tem”), a personification of the “North Wind” or breath of Re. In Chapter CLXXIV of the Book of the Dead, the deceased announced “I grow bright like Nefer-Tem, who is the lotus at the nostrils of Re, when he comes forth in the Mount of Glory each day.” Re is thus “that great god who is within the lotus bud of gold.”1555

Inscriptions at Dendera show the king offering a lotus to the god Horus with the words, “I offer thee the flower, which was in the beginning, the glorious lily of the great water. Thou camest forth from the midst of its leaves in the town of Chmun (Hermopolis magna) and didst lighten the earth, which was still wrapped in darkness.”1556

Parallels to the Egyptian cosmic lotus, as the home of the great god, will be found in all sections of the world, including the Americas. The Mayans knew the flower as “the form of the moisture of heaven, the substance of heaven, the yellow blossom of heaven.”1557 Looking back to the creation a Mayan text recalls, “Then it was that the flower sprang up, wide open . . . Thereupon the heart of the flower came forth to set itself in motion. Four-fold [can-hek, literally “four-branched”] was the place of the flower and Ah Kin Xocbiltun was set in the centre.1558

 

141. The primeval sun’s birth in the lotus

 

142.   The man-child Horus on the lotus blossom

Much the same tradition occurs in Mesopotamia, where a Babylonian text depicts the plant of life emerging in Eridu, the dwelling on the cosmic sea:

(In) Eridu a stalk grew over-shadowing: in a holy place did it become green; its root was of white crystal which stretched toward the deep;

(before) Ea was its course in Eridu, teeming with fertility;

its seat was the central place of the earth: its foliage was the couch of Zikum (the primeval mother). Into the heart of its holy house which spread its shade like a forest hath no man entered . . .

In the midst of it was Tammuz.1559

 

143. Tut-Ankh-Amon, presented in the form of Nefer-Tem.

This “bright plant which grows up from the apsu [the cosmic sea]”1560 is clearly an early prototype of the famous Hindu soma and Iranian haoma plants both recognized as belonging originally to the gods in heaven.1561 (Thus the haoma is “the first of the trees planted by Ahura Mazda in the fountains of life.”)1562

Egyptian, Hindu, and Buddhist sources either show the head of the great god emerging from a lotus or depict the god in a resting position in or above the lotus.

It is logical to refer such imagery of the lotus-seat to the archetypal sun-in-crescent  and all the more so  because the plant of life is regularly identified with the crescent “moon.”1563 The soma and haoma plants are widely discussed as figures of the “moon.” The Mayan Book of Chilam Balam refers to the “moon” as the “flower of the night.”1564 Similarly, the Sumero-Babylonian crescent of Nannar or Sin is the “lofty plant, magnificent, whose abundance never ceases.”1565

We have seen that the Babylonians depicted the crescent of Sin as the support, or lower half, of the world wheel . The relationship illuminates Hindu and Buddhist symbolism of the cosmic wheel resting in the expanded leaf of a lotus (fig. 144). The lotus supports and reaches around the celestial “land” and is thus always identified with the mother  goddess, the female personification of the wheel. In the ritual of the Satapatha Brahmana a lotus leaf becomes the “birthplace of Agni” and “the symbol of his womb.” Upon the symbolic lotus leaf the priest lays a round gold disk said to represent the “sun.” “The lotus means the Waters, and this earth is a leaf thereof . . . and this same earth is Agni’s womb,” reads the text. 1566 It is imagery of this sort which yields such epithets of the Hindu great god as “lotus-born,” “lotus-seated,” or “lotus-navelled.”1567

The connection of the lotus and “lotus-born” god with the sun-in-crescent is equally evident in the equation of the  lotus and the cosmic ship. In the Egyptian system the ship and the lotus are synonymous: the great god sails in a lotus-ship, which the artists illustrate either by a lotus blossom in the centre of the ship or by a lotus terminating either one end or both ends of the vessel.1568

 

144.   Hindu world wheel resting in lotus leaf.

 

145. Lotus blossom = ship as mythical image of the Saturnian crescent

 

And the same equation occurs among the Hindus, who tell us that the cosmic ship Argha was the lotus on which the great god sailed in the beginning.1569

Now if the blossom of the plant of life is the circumpolar crescent, one can assume that the “stem” is the cosmic mountain. The Egyptians  represented  the great  god’s  “sceptre” as a lotus   and in both the hieroglyphs and in art this sceptre becomes the pillar upholding  “heaven”  .1570 Lotus-pillars are often depicted supporting the god’s shrine or throne,1571  while at other times the great god is depicted resting upon a lotus column.

But the plant of life was also represented as a papyrus—and called “the Gleaming Sceptre of Papyrus.”1572 A text published by Dumichen says “Thou art the Eye of Re, at the tip of the papyrus-stem.”1573 Of course other texts say that it is the light-pillar Shu which holds aloft the Eye, but there can be no contradiction: the Egyptian word shu means both “light-pillar” and “papyrus.”

The identity of the two powers is also explicit in Hindu iconography. The soma plant, to which many hymns of the Rig Veda are devoted, is “the stabilizer and supporter of heaven.”1574 The introductory verse of the Dasakumaraccrita includes as a figure of the world axis “the stalk of the lotus where Brahma resides.”1575 Of the cosmic lotus in Buddhism, M. Mus writes: “The prolongation of the stem, which is the axis of the sensible world, bears at the summit of the universe the spiritual lotus-throne . . .”1576 Thus does the cosmic Mount Meru become the “lotus-mountain,”1577 and in the same way the Iranian haoma plant appears as the “imperishable pillar of life.”1578

 

146.   The Lotus column surmounted by the Horus-falcon

 

147. Egyptian Eye (= crescent enclosure) supported on the lotus column

 

148. Saturn riding on his serpentine chariot and wielding his scythe (from Poeticon Astronomicon, Venice, 1485).

Sword

Saturn comes to power wielding his curved sword or scythe, which writers generally connect with the crescent “moon.” The Greek Kronos carries as his special weapon the curved harpe and it has often been proposed that this weapon lies behind the relatively late astronomical sign of Saturn, . The harpe and the winged harpies (birdlike female monsters) surely trace to the same root. (That is, “sword” and “wings” refer to the same cosmic form.)

In a Sumerian hymn, Ninurta, or Saturn, invokes the “sickle of my Anuship” [i.e., of kingship] and the weapon is called at once sharur and shargaz—both names of Sin, the crescent “moon.”1579 Sin is the “sickle” and the “curved sabre” of the great god.1580

The Egyptians knew the sword as the khepesh, written with  the signs                 and , or as the ma, whose sign, , depicts a sickle fashioned from the jawbone of an animal. The Pyramid Texts identify the great god’s sword as “a sharp strong horn”1581 (sword = horn). But khepesh also means the “shoulder” or “two arms” of heaven. And here the symbolism meshes precisely with that of the Babylonian system, which declares the sickle of Sin to be “the two arms” of Enlil, the cosmic mountain.

That the sword shares in the coherent imagery of the Saturnian crescent is suggested by other traditions also. In Genesis 3:24, Yahweh is said to have placed in front (translators say to the “East”) “of the garden of Eden kerubim and the flaming blade of the sword which turns, to keep the way of the tree of life.” If the thesis presented here is correct, the winged kerubim refer to the same revolving crescent as the turning sword. Many scholars logically connect the Hebrew kerubim with the Assyro- Babylonian kirubi, the winged and horned beasts who in the form of twins guard and define the limits of the great god’s enclosure. In the Assyrian vocabulary, kirub means “bull,” while kirubu designates a large species of bird of prey. The revolving “sword” of Genesis, on the other hand, is the khereb, a “curved sickle,” recognized as the Hebrew counterpart of the Greek harpe and the Egyptian khepesh.1582

The Altar

 

For reasons which I intend to examine at length in a subsequent volume, the Saturnian crescent was the receptacle of a primordial “sacrifice.” Together the crescent and cosmic mountain  formed “the Altar of the World.”

Egyptian hieroglyphs record the altar by the sign . Upon the altar—called the Altar of Hetep (“rest”) or Altar  of the Uatchet (Eye)—rests all the food and drink of the celestial habitation.

In the Book of the Dead, the great god comes forth “in the city of Annu, upon the altar of the lady of the two lands,” and it is clear that the Egyptians conceived the altar as supporting and embracing the entire celestial domain (or twin “lands”).1583 Hence the sign —glyph of the “holy domain”—shows the womb of Nut       , resting on the altar.

Always, the altar conveys the same significance as the primordial “world.” Among the Hindus, notes Eliade, “the building of the altar was conceived as a creation of the world. The water with which the clay was mixed was the same as the primeval waters.”1584 “As large as the altar is, so large is the earth,” reads the Satapatha Brahmana.1585

The same altar may be termed “the navel of the earth . . . the lap [womb] of Aditi,” in close correspondence with Egyptian symbolism.1586

Hebrew and Muslim thought, according to Wensinck, considered the altar “as a symbolic representation of the earth.”1587 A Midrash asks, “Where is the navel? In Jerusalem. But the navel itself is the altar.”1588 Of the primeval altar, tradition says, “Its top reached to heaven.”1589

The god upon the altar is simply the “sun” resting in the pillared crescent . (Hence the image of the sun-in-crescent upon the Sabaean altar in fig. 63.) Early prototypes of the altar throughout the ancient world not only connect it with the central pillar of the Cosmos1590 but suggest a radical association with the cosmic bull, while altars from Persia to Crete to Africa were either decorated with horns or given the shape of horns. “The horned altar” and “the horns of the altar” were, of course, common phrases among the ancient Hebrews.

Above and Below, Left and Right

More than once, in discussing common translations of ancient sources, I have had occasion to refer to the inappropriate use of the phrases “east and west,” “north and south.” and “heaven and earth.” Such terminology, I have suggested arises from the habit of reading solar imagery into non-solar texts and of interpreting the great god’s cosmic dwelling in terrestrial terms.

Without attempting to provide a complete analysis of the problem (which I intend to explore in a separate volume on Egyptian religion), I shall simply indicate the manner in which the question can be resolved by reference to the Saturnian configuration.

Of course, there can be little progress toward an improved understanding of ancient religious texts until the translators and commentators acknowledge the celestial character of the imagery. From start to finish the hymns and liturgies deal with cosmic figures and cosmic events. And when these mythical figures and events are connected with a primordial “land” it is imperative that one understand this “land” as the enclosure of the original great god, who is Saturn. The texts deal, not with geography, but with cosmography—the map of the celestial kingdom. In relation to Saturn’s dwelling the words which translators render as “east” and “west” actually mean something quite different. And while the modern phrase “heaven and earth” suggests little concrete meaning, the archaic terms so translated convey a very specific sense.

In the Egyptian language the word rendered as “east” is Abtet (Abt or Abti), while the word translated “west” is Amentet   (or

Amenti). To what did the Egyptians refer by these words?

If the first mistake of the translators is to assume that Abtet and Amentet are geographical terms, the second is to assume that they necessarily refer to opposite regions, or directions. Standard translations are based on the premise that the “sun” rises in the east and sets in the west. Yet to anyone following this logic ancient Egyptian texts will leave the impression that the priests were continually forgetful of the place of sunrise and sunset. If Amentet was the “west,” why did the Egyptians repeatedly describe the  great god “coming forth” or “renewing himself” in Amentet? I cite below a few conventional translations:

Behold the coming forth from the West.1591

Osiris, He who arises in Health, He at the Head of the West.1592

The arms of the inhabitants of the West receive thee in thy forms of glory and rejuvenation.1593

 

I make myself young (in) the fair West.1594

When thou comest forth in peace there arise shouts of delight to thee, O thou lord of heaven, thou prince of the West.1595

Of such imagery as this, Kristensen writes: “What was meant is evidently that the sun, when it goes down does not die but reaches the hidden fountain of life.”1596 But one naturally remains skeptical of such conjecture. Do the hymns cited above portray the solar orb “when it goes down”? The truth is that if we substituted “east” for “west” in these lines they would appear to solar mythologists as perfectly reasonable descriptions of the rising sun. Rather than the “west,” Amentet is simply the Holy Land, the primeval enclosure. The head, or governor, of Amentet is the central sun, which does not rise or set, but “goes in and out” (i.e., grows bright and diminishes) with the full cycle of each “day.” The great god’s “coming forth in Amentet” signifies the beginning of the day. (An equivalent phrase, “coming forth by day,” occurs repeatedly in Egyptian texts). Thus Chapter CVII of the Book of the Dead is “The Chapter of Going Into and Coming Out from the Gate of the Gods of Amentet.”1597 Chapter XVII extols the great god’s “coming out and going in” within Amentet1598.

It is the same thing to say that the god grows bright and diminishes within the womb of the mother goddess. There was, in fact, a goddess Ament whom the Egyptians equated with Isis, while Isis herself was “the Divine Mother, Lady of Amentet.”1599 The phrase has no original connection with geography; it simply refers to Isis as the womb or enclosure of the Holy Land above. Hathor is the same goddess: “Hathor, Lady of Amentet . . . , Lady of the Holy Country.”1600 Elsewhere the texts identify Amentet as the circumpolar Tuat, the womb of Nut.1601 There is no association with the geographical “west.”

To reside within the Holy Land of Amentet is to rest in the mother-womb, which goes by many names. In text after text the priests seek to show that the various names of the Holy Land signified the same enclosure. When the Book of the Dead calls Osiris the “mighty one who comest forth from Nut, thou king in the city of Nifu-ur, thou Governor of Amentet, thou lord of Abtu (Abydos),” 1602 the reference is not to different dwellings but to different names of the same dwelling.

What has caused so much confusion is the fact that the Holy Land is a bisected circle. The central sun is he who “unites the two Tuats, the two regions of Amentet.”1603 Here one must reckon with the paradox of the celestial twins. In naming the two divisions of the Holy Land the Egyptians brought together two independent names for the enclosure as a whole, pairing them as opposites.

This development of the language stands out in the case of Isis and Nephthys, both of whom, independently, denote the full circle of the Aten . Isis is the “house,” “chamber,” or “throne” of the central sun, while Nephthys is the “Lady of the House” (or simply “Lady-House”). As a pair, however, Isis and Nephthys personify two halves of the circle, the “left  and the right,” suggested by the counterpoised positions of the revolving crescent , .

In the same way the Egyptians paired the name Amentet with another name of the same dwellingAbtet—yielding the dual kingdom of Amentet-Abtet.1604 When joined as opposites, Amentet and Abtet are precisely synonymous with the twins Isis and Nephthys. By this union, Amentet acquires the literal meaning “region of the right” and Abtet, “region of the left.” The idea that the god-king, standing in the centre of the enclosure, balances the divisions of the left and right will be found repeatedly in both the texts and in art. That translators commonly use the terms “east and “west” has caused a major confusion in conventional translations.

Like Amentet, in other words, the Egyptian term Abtet (conventionally translated “east”) may refer either to the entire celestial kingdom or to one of its two divisions. Fundamentally, Abtet is the sacred land at the centre and summit. The king, in the Pyramid Texts, seeks to attain this dwelling, with the words, “May I ascend and lift myself up to the sky as the great star in the midst of Abtet.” “I have come into heaven, and I embrace my seat which is in Abtet,” reads a line from the Book of the Dead.1605 Here, any connection of Abtet with the “east” or the solar orb exists only in the mind of the translators.

The same inappropriate use of terms is evident in the phrase “heaven and earth” recurring in virtually all accepted translations. “The universe as a whole was referred to as ‘heaven and earth,’” states Frankfort. 1606 The two terms in question are pet (translated “heaven”) and ta (translated “earth”).

Literally, the phrase “pet and ta” means “the above and below.” Numerous Egyptian illustrations indicate that, together, the two divisions composed an enclosure around the “sun”-god. As opposites the pet and ta mean the celestial twins, here personifying the revolving crescent in its alternate positions above     and below    the stationary god.

But this does not mean that pet necessarily denotes “above” any more than ta necessarily means “below.” As a matter of fact, many signs extol “two pet,” one above and one below (denoted by   the sign             and its inverse        ). And few phrases are more common in Egyptian sources than the “two ta,” explicitly referring to the upper and lower divisions of the celestial kingdom. Fundamentally, the pet is the twofold circle of Saturn’s Cosmos, and the ta is the same circle, conceived as an enclosure  of

 

“land” around the central sun. It is only as a pair that pet and ta acquire the meaning “above and below.” And in no sense does the translation “heaven and earth” convey the tangible significance of the terms.

The Egyptian “circle of above and below” is the womb of Nut, the “holy abode” (written with the sign  ).1607 Yet Nut’s identity with the full circle did not prevent the Egyptians from pairing Nut with another goddess, Naunet, so that together they represented the two halves of the circle, represented by the signs of the   “above” (Nut               ) and the “below” (Naunet                                                                                                                                                           ). In the same way the priests joined Nut with the male figure Geb, identifying Nut with the upper half of the enclosure and Geb with the lower. According to tradition the separation of the portions was carried out by the god Shu, the pillar with outstretched arms. Indeed, it was the arms of Shu (i.e., the Saturnian crescent) which divided the circle into upper and lower regions, according to the original tradition.

The division of the enclosure into male (lower) and female (upper) halves gave rise to two interrelated signs of masculine and feminine connotation.  The sign           depicts the male power (usually translated “lord”)   while

the same semicircular image inverted (and in smaller scale)                signifies “feminine.” Together the upper and lower hemispheres compose the complete circle of the Aten or shen bond. To translate masculine and feminine divisions as “heaven” and “earth” simply destroys the interrelated symbolism of the enclosure.

 

149. Nut and Geb, as the Above and the

The terminology in question (“left and right,” “above and below”) concerns celestial regions marked out by the revolving Saturnian crescent, which is the ever-turning face of the central sun (or the “two” faces of the twin god). This is why the sign                                                                                             , which may also be  presented inversely                                                             , means, among other things, heru, or    “face.” The herui are the “two faces” of Horus, or of Horus and Set, acknowledged personifications of the “Upper Land” and the “Lower Land.”

Pertaining to the same imagery is the notion of two semicircular “mounds” joined so as to form a full circle. The Egyptian  “mound”  sign   is nothing more than one half of the quartered womb of Nut . Its meaning is  “division of the holy abode.” The central sun may be designated either “the Great One in the Mound” or the dweller in “two” mounds.1608

The two mounds are the two atenti or aterti, the two halves of the Aten. Atent, written with the sign  (one half of the elongated shen bond, or cartouche ), signifies a “division into opposite regions.” The texts speak of an atert meht, the “lower half” of the Aten; and an atert shema, the “upper half.” Any attempt to understand such terminology in terrestrial terms can only yield confusion.

The divisions of the “right and left” and “above and below” are not only manifestly cosmic, their special character derives from the relation of  the  revolving crescent  to the  stationary god  and  his enclosure.  When the  crescent  passes  below the god   it  “supports” him, and when it arches above , it “bows” to him. Thus the texts say of the cosmic twins: “The two mistresses of Buto [the celestial city] accompany you to the right and left . . . , they support you and bow to you.” 1609 The same thing is said of the twin regions:

The two regions of Abtet [the left] and Amentet [the right] make adoration unto thee, bowing low and paying homage unto [sethes, “supporting”] thee.1610

O luminary, the lower and upper halves of Heaven [pet] come to thee and bow low in adoration.1611

That  the  bowing  region  means  the  upper  half  of  the  enclosure  (in  opposition  to  the  “supporting”  region  below  ) is demonstrated by the symbolism of Nut. While Nut, in her relationship to Geb represents “above,” this quality of the goddess may be represented either by   the sign       or another sign of precisely the same —              depicting the “above” as a bowing goddess.

Saturn’s Day

 

In the revolving crescent we possess the key to Egyptian symbolism of the “day” and “night,” for the crescent’s position simply reflected the position of the solar orb in relation to the terrestrial observer. One should think of the revolving crescent as Saturn’s ship, in which the god voyaged around the four regions (“above”       , “left” , “below”        , “right” ), all the while standing in one place. The four positions (regions) will correspond to four segments of the archaic day.

1. The cycle began with the descent of the crescent as it moved from its position “above” (solar orb directly overhead) to its position directly to the “left” of Saturn  (solar sunset). On reaching the region of the “left,” Saturn and the crescent began to grow bright, due to the darkening of the heavens as the solar orb sank below the horizon. Hence, in the general symbolism of the “left and right” (Abtet and Amentet) the left is the region of “dawn” or “growing ”

The cosmic ship, on reaching Abtet, the “left,” became the Matet ship, whose name means “becoming strong.” It was, in other words, a descending ship which grew bright—a fact which has frustrated many solar mythologists, who would have expected the “dawn” or “morning” to express itself in a rising solar bark. “I descend in the ship of the morning,” states the god.1612

Including the polar mount, the image of the “dawn” is . The Egyptians gave human form to the image in the hieroglyph , symbol of the tua or “morning.” Mythically, the god “awakens,” and the spirits of the celestial city come to  life, “praising” and “supporting” the god with the descending crescent-arms. It was these aspects of the archaic dawn which supplied the Egyptian pillar-sign  with its interconnected meanings: “to awaken,” “to praise,” “to support.”

2. The supreme moment of the “day” was that at which the Saturnian crescent sat squarely upon the central pillar, the two horns of the  crescent  reaching  equally  to  the  left  and  right  . At this moment the solar orb stood directly beneath the terrestrial observer, and the entire Saturnian configuration shone its
3. As the crescent traveled toward the region of the “right” (which it reached at the solar sunrise) Saturn’s brilliance began to diminish. The god’s vessel became the Semktet ship, or the ship of “becoming weak.” The god “sails upstream” in the Semktet ship (again, a surprise to solar mythologists). In the dual kingdom of Abtet-Amentet the region of Amentet (the “right”) is thus the domain of declining, or “going ”
4. The cycle was completed with the return of the crescent to the position “above”    (solar orb directly overhead). This point in the cycle, when Saturn’s light was most subdued, was the archaic “night.”

The cycle of the day and night is one of the most pervasive themes in Egyptian art, and the key is the revolving crescent. In connection with the cosmic twins, I have already noted that the primal pair has its origin in the alternating positions of the crescent around the central sun, and that this symmetrical opposition is depicted in illustrations of the daily cycle. The artists often showed a pair of arms (= crescent) reaching around the Aten alternately from above and below, or from the left and right. These are not only pictures of the dual regions, but of the cycle of “coming forth and diminishing.”

Around this cycle the Egyptians built an impressive range of symbols, and the underlying connection with the revolving crescent reflects itself in two basic rules.

1. All symbols of the “day” (in opposition to “night”) have their origin in the image of the crescent “below.” This is why the signs for the “lower” region generally overlap with signs for the “day.” In fact, a number of interrelated ideas converge on the same celestial image (      ,      , , ): “below,” “lower,” “day,” “coming forth,” “life,” “existence,” “awake,” “support,” “celebrate,” “masculine ”
2. Similarly, the symbols of the “night” generally coincide with the symbols of the “above,” all taking their meaning from the inverted crescent ( ,       , , ), The meanings include: “above,” “upper,” “mound,” “night, diminished,” “negation, absence,” “asleep,” “concealment,” “bowing,” “feminine,” “arrival” (at the top), and “completion” (of the cycle).

Here are a few of the key signs:

 

1. , . The signs not only portray the Khut or Mount of Glory, they signify “the coming forth” of the sun-god, who shines between the two peaks of the right and left. In this sense the signs have exactly the same meaning as the image , i.e., the “day.” But the mountain sign also means “the below.”

While Egyptologists like to think of the two peaks as fixed on our earth, the Egyptians themselves knew that the great god “sailed” in the Khut or “revolved” round the Aten in the Khut. This is why the artists not only placed the two peaks in the revolving ship, but often depicted them in an inverted position  above the Aten. The inverted peaks simultaneously mean “the above” and “concealment” or “obscurity.” Together, the upright and inverted peaks represent both the full cycle of the day and the full circle (above and below) of the celestial kingdom.

 

150. Khut and Ankh, interchangeable symbols of the twin-peaked mountains

 

 

151. (a, b) Egyptian illustrations of the Ankh, with outstretched arms holding aloft the Aten. The Ankh issues from the Tet, the pillar of “stability.”
152. . No Egyptian sign is more familiar to the modern world than the Ankh. In Egyptian symbolism the Ankh corresponds in fundamental meaning to the Khut, or Mount of Glory. To convey this equation the artists either superimposed the Ankh on the two peaks (fig. 150) or showed the Aten resting, not on the Khut, but on two arms extending upward from the Ankh (fig. 151a & b).

The Ankh (whose origins the experts have long debated) is but a conventionalized image of the polar configuration during the period of “coming forth,” or “life.” We have already seen that the image of the crescent-enclosure  passed into the related forms

,             ,                ,         . The Ankh merely adds the central pillar.

Just as the central sun “comes forth in the Mount of Glory,” so also does it “come forth in the Ankh” —literally, “in the Mountain of life.” As a figure of the sun-god’s period of brilliance or “activity” the hieroglyph came to signify “life” generally.

3. . This sign for the “upper face” of the sun-god takes its meaning from the crescent in its position “above” . i.e., the “night”-time position. Thus, in addition to its meaning as “the upper region” the sign also denotes “obscurity,” “concealment,” and “night.”

To show the relation of above and below (“night and day”),    the artists often placed the sign                  over the cleft peak , so that together the two images present an enclosure, signifying the full circle of the Aten.

 

152. Together, the “above” and the “below” (the upraised arms) form the enclosure of “the above and ”

 

153. Nut, the Above, held aloft by Shu. (Arms of Shu = ship = twin peaks as figures of the Below).
154. , , , , . Upraised arms, in Egyptian symbolism, signify the crescent “below”        , and thus possess the full range of meanings associated with Saturn’s “day.” The Ka-arms, commonly shown supporting the Aten, convey the sense of “life,” “coming forth.” “support,” and “masculine power” (“below” = “male principle”). The   sign  (or ) denotes “living Re,” while the sign  carries the interrelated meanings “to support,” “to ”

But numerous illustrations also show the Ka-arms embracing the Aten from above (figs. 113, 114). Here they denote “the upper region,” the region of the “night.” Hence the related signs and (inverted arms) means “cessation,” “absence,” “negation,” and completion.”

5. , . In illustrations of the daily cycle, these signs of the “upper region” (corresponding to the crescent above       ) are interchangeable with the image of the inverted  cleft peak  . They mean “hidden,” “concealed.” and by extension, “mysterious,” “secret.”

(Concerning the sign , however, an additional significance deserves consideration. The twofold enclosure, or circle of the cosmic twins—pertaining to symmetrically related positions of the crescent—is a circle half light and half shadow. In one character, the twins simply represent the light and dark divisions, so that the inverted semicircle  might represent, not the “night”-time crescent, but the shadow in the “day”-time configuration

. It is thus highly significant that the sign , read Khaibit, means “shadow.” As the female [upper] portion of the circle, the Khaibit comes to be conceived as the consort of the male power [lower region]. Of course, one could hardly expect the Egyptians to rigorously maintain the distinction between the “shadow” and the inverted crescent.)

 

 

6.        , , ,               . As earlier noted, all symbols of the Aten resting in the horns signify “coming

 

forth” and “below.” But in  the sign                the horns are inverted over the central sun and pillar. The sign’s   meaning is “concealed,” “mysterious.”

 

7. , , , . All of these images of the primeval “mound” depict the upper region, marked out by the crescent at the completion of the daily cycle. Thus the mound sign (or ) means “to arrive (at the top),” “to complete the journey (or cycle).” Closely related is the sign  , “to arrive.” Generally the mound signs refer to the region of “sleep,” “death,” or “diminished light.”

The reverse of these mound  signs is   suggesting the crescent in its “day”-time position. The glyph means “golden” or “brilliant.”

8. , . While the sign   denotes the masculine power of the Cosmos (the below) the inverse image            denotes the feminine (the above). When the crescent reaches the below the celestial kingdom   is in “celebration.” Hence the sign  means “celebration,” “festival of life.”

Though many additional aspects of the Egyptian twofold kingdom and the related circle of “day and night” need to be explored, I cite the above simply to indicate how the Saturnian configuration can illuminate certain Egyptian images which have long remained unexplained.

Concerning the relation of the Egyptian system to the language and symbols of other nations, I offer no steadfast rule. But there is every reason to believe that certain general principles can be applied elsewhere. In ancient Sumerian thought, for example, the “Cosmos” is designated by the term an-ki. (Jensen renders the word as “the All.”)1613  The most common translation of an-ki is “heaven and earth.” But the symbol of “the All” is  , and the literal meaning of an-ki is “above and below,” suggesting a noteworthy parallel with the Egyptian circle of pet-ta. And just as the Egyptian goddess Nut forms the “circle of above and below,” so does the Sumerian goddess Inanna “encompass the an-ki.”

To unravel the symbolism of the dual kingdom, or of the quartered kingdom, the first requirement is to put  aside prevailing geographical interpretations. The language originated in connection with the celestial dwelling. In the original imagery the phrase “heaven and earth” is meaningless. There is no “north,” “south,” “east,” or “west,” There is simply the above and below, the left and right, the regions of coming forth and declining. As to the capacity of this principle to  resolve numerous enigmas of ancient speech I have no doubt.

 

Conclusion

In the foregoing pages I have attempted to show that the oldest motifs of ritual and myth focus on a coherent set of ideas—and that these ideas bear no relationship to the present world order. What modern man views as creations of a fragmented and irrational imagination actually pertain to a vision of exceptional simplicity. The Cyclopes, dragons, and one-legged giants speak not for unconstrained speculation, but for once visible powers.

To modern writers, seeking to penetrate the language of myth, it is as if early races contrived their fantastic symbolism in conscious disdain for later efforts to understand. “Anyone who has ever entered the labyrinth of an archaic culture’s mythical compendia (the Pyramid Texts, the Vedas, the Theogony) can testify to a desperate suspicion that there is no thread of objective reality,” confessed one classicist. Such a suspicion is difficult to dispel in the face of such “primitive” imagery as golden mountains reaching heaven, revolving islands and temples, winged goddesses, cosmic bulls, circular serpents, and descending rivers of fire. Mythologists quickly despair of rational explanation.

But it is the thesis of this book that the confusion results chiefly from the failure of the modern age to discern the underlying cosmic order to which the myths refer. Our reconstruction of this order includes the following elements:

1. In the earliest age recalled by man the planet Saturn was the dominant celestial body. Ancient races the world over record that there was once a “Golden Age”—a kingdom of cosmic harmony ruled by a central light god. Numerous sources identify this light god as the planet
2. Accounts of Saturn’s appearance suggest that the planet hung ominously close to the earth. In early ritual and astronomy Saturn appears as the “primeval sun,” described as a figure of “terrifying splendour.” Today, Saturn appears as a bare speck of light following the same visual path as the solar orb. But during the legendary Golden Age, Saturn stood in the north. Legends from every continent depict the primeval sun as an immense, fiery globe at the north celestial pole—the visual pivot of the heavens. Unlike the rising and setting solar orb, the primeval sun remained fixed in one
3. The modern age has misread the ancient accounts of “the beginning.” These accounts speak of a creator, a first man, and a first king—all referring to the same cosmic figure. It is impossible to understand these accounts in any conventional sense because the ancient terminology carries meanings radically different from the modern. The legendary creator, first man, and first king was Saturn.
4. The subject of the global creation legend is a spectacular cosmic event actually witnessed by the ancients: massive quantities of cosmic debris exploded from Saturn, clouding the heavens and eventually congealing into a vast band around the planet. In mythical terms this band was Saturn’s created “land” in heaven. Saturn ruled this celestial kingdom as both the Universal Monarch and Adam, the Primordial “Man.”
5. The ancients drew pictures of Saturn incessantly, and these pictures will be found around the world. Ancient papyri, clay tablets, monuments, artifacts, and rock drawings consistently show a central orb surrounded by a circle. This symbol of the “enclosed sun” is the original hieroglyph for the planet
6. Images of Saturn in his enclosure occur on every page of ancient texts. The band is Saturn’s spouse, the mother goddess. But it is also his revolving temple, city, or island in heaven. It is the stationary, but ever-turning “world-wheel” recalled by almost every ancient race. Saturn wears the band as a golden girdle, collar, or crown. He dwells in it as the pupil of the all-seeing Eye. The same band receives mythical interpretation as Saturn’s throne, a receptacle of cosmic waters, and an encircling
7. Four primary streams of light appeared to radiate from Saturn, dividing the Saturnian band into quarters. The symbols of these four streams are the sun-cross and enclosed sun cross . Mythically, these are the four rivers of the lost paradise, the four winds, and the four pillars of Saturn’s Cosmos. The enclosed sun-cross is thus the universal image of the “unified state” on our earth, for every terrestrial “holy land” was a copy of the ideal kingdom
8. The same records which describe Saturn’s band and its four-fold division depict a pillar-like stream ascending the world axis and visually seeming to sustain Saturn’s Two primary images of this “cosmic mountain” are and . In the myths this column appears as the great god’s single leg, a vertical stream of water or air (the North Wind), and the erect serpent or dragon of the deep.

9. Receiving light from the solar orb, the Saturnian band acquired a brightly illuminated crescent, which, as the earth rotated  on its  axis, visually revolved  around Saturn each day.  The light  and dark portions  of the   band

 

found expression in the black and white cosmic twins, while the alternating positions of the crescent produced the twins of the “right and left” or “above and below.”

10. In the polar configuration the ancients saw, at once, the cleft summit of the cosmic mountain, with the central sun standing between the peaks of the right and left; the cosmic bull supporting Saturn between its horns; Saturn’s crescent-ship on the mountaintop; the heaven-sustaining giant with out-stretched arms; the winged god or goddess; the plant of life; Saturn’s turning sword; and the altar of the world. It was the relation of the Saturnian crescent to Saturn’s period of brilliance which produced the original symbolism of the four directions and of “day and ”

In the earliest age the Saturnian configuration was the exclusive focal point of religious rites. But when Saturn’s Golden Age passed away, mankind drew on all aspects of nature to commemorate his reign. The solar orb, the moon, meteorological forces, various animals, mountains and rivers—all manifest some special quality of the creator-king. And where no representative powers were available in nature, the ancients fashioned their own monuments in earth and stone.

The first requirement, then, is to distinguish between the primeval, cosmic forms on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the representative images chosen to depict those forms in ritual and myth. We must separate the archetype (concealed reality) from the symbol (analogy or representation of reality).

In examining the world of symbolism our predicament is much like that of the dwellers in Plato’s allegorical cave, who can discern the nature of things only through the shadowy specters cast on the wall. Most of the cave’s inhabitants take the shadows for the real world, but occasionally a wiser man recognizes that the shadows are merely the blurred image of a more coherent reality.

So it is with ancient myth and ritual. One must not confuse the shadow with its source, the symbol with the thing symbolized.

If the Egyptians came to regard the bull as sacred it was only because this animal was the natural counterpart to the Bull of Heaven, whose horns, supporting the very vault of the Cosmos, “shone like day.” If the eagle was similarly venerated, this was because its expanded wings seemed to mirror a special quality of the “winged” creator, or the “winged” goddess.

The same principle applies to the symbolism of the constellations. The vital powers depicted by constellation figures date back to an era long before men began imposing anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms on star groups. But eventually the ancients sought to represent diverse aspects and traditions of the great god by sketching them out in the heavens.

Could a patternless group of stars have inspired the history of mighty Orion? Rather, the story of Orion preceded astrology. (In fact, Orion is widely acknowledged to be the Greek version of the Babylonian Tammuz-Ninurta, the planet Saturn) And when priest-astronomers finally projected Orion onto the starry dome, they received only the most feeble assistance from the stellar patterns themselves.

Likewise, our sun, contrary to long-standing opinion, never inspired the idea of a “supreme god” and never produced an original myth of creation. Only in later times did the poets and historians confuse the solar orb with the great god of beginnings. But that such a confusion did occur is crucial to an understanding of the development of ancient religion. In Egypt, for example, the original ritual of the central sun was eventually transformed into eulogies to the solar orb; and the devotion to the celestial kingdom passed finally into a veneration of nature as a whole. (the most decisive shift occurred in the time of Akhenaten.) One could trace similar developments among numerous races, as priests, philosophers, astronomers, and more practical-minded generations became ever more preoccupied with “this world,” recasting Saturnian imagery within the context of a less spectacular cosmic order.

Rather than attempt to follow the complex process here, I ask the reader to await treatment of the subject in the second volume of this work (entitled The Cataclysm). The fact is that the traditions reviewed in previous sections supply only the preface to the Saturnian drama. In these pages I have sought only to demonstrate the reality of Saturn’s polar configuration, reserving discussion of the ultimate calamity for the subsequent volume.

Saturn’s death or fall, we will discover, constituted the prototypal catastrophe, recounted by the ancients in numerous forms and elaborations. The collapse of the celestial kingdom; the world-destroying deluge; the battle with the serpent-dragon of the deep; the birth of Jupiter; the Child-Hero; the resurrection and transformation of Saturn; and Saturn’s eventual departure to the distant realm— these are key elements in a story of incalculable impact on ancient imagination.

But to decipher the myths of the great catastrophe one must have clearly in mind the nature of the celestial  order brought to an end with Saturn’s fall. For those willing to pursue the question in an objective spirit there is the promise of dramatic discoveries about man’s past.

 

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Endnotes

 

1 A number of Vail’s papers have been collected and published by Donald Cyr, Annular Publications, 25 West Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara, California

2 A general and less-than-convincing survey of mythological evidence will be found in H. S. Bellamy, Moons, Myths and Man

3 This is not the place to recount the details of the “Velikovsky affair” or to recite the many unexpected space age  discoveries weighing in Velikovsky’s favor. The story receives comprehensive coverage in the recent book Velikovsky Reconsidered, a series of papers by scholars acknowledging substantial scientific evidence in support of Velikovsky’s claims.

4 Spencer, The Principles of Sociology; Tylor, Primitive Culture and Researches into the Early History of Mankind; Frazer, The Golden Bough.

In 1934 E.A. Wallis Budge published his From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt, whose very title indicates the influence of the evolutionary theory on specialists. Budge writes (p.56): “Animism must have preceded the magical cults of the predynastic Egyptians, and it, in its turn, was succeeded by the cults of animals, birds, reptiles, trees, etc., which after animism formed the predominant part of the later religion of the Egyptians. The great merit and fact that it embraced a qualified totemism and fetishism and prepared the way for the higher classes of spirits to become ‘gods.’”

Yet one looks in vain for evidence of this assumed evolution among the Egyptians.

5  Pyramid Text 1040.

6  Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, 40, from Chapter 85 of The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

7  Clark, op. cit., 94.

8  Ibid., 95.

9 Ibid., 74. Elsewhere the texts employ the phrases “while he was still alone,” (77), “when I [Atum] was still alone in the waters . . .” 38.

10 Muller observes, for example, that within the capital of each of the forty-two names, the original patron god was extolled “as though he was the only god or was at least the supreme divinity.” Egyptian Mythology , 17-18.

11  Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods , 37.

12  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead , Introductory Hymn to Re.

13  Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 80.

14 Ptah is “le dieu splendide qui existait tout seul au commencement. Il n’y a pas son pareil, celui qui s’est créé au commencement sans avoir ni père ni mère. Il a façonné son corps tout seul, celui qui a créé sans être créé, celui qui porte le ciel comme le travail de ses mains.” Hassan, Hymnes Religieux du Moyen Empire, 160-61.

15 Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians,Vol. I, 131 ff., 400, 501: also Budge, From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt, 4-5, 138- 39.

16  Hassan, op cit., 24, 27; Budge, Gods , Vol. II, 14.

17  Langdon, Semitic Mythology , xviii.

18 Ibid., 93. “Les épithètes laudatives insisteront sur son caractère de dieu des cieux, père des cieux, et surtout de roi des cieux. Il trône au sommet de la voûte céleste.” Dhorme, Les Religions de Babylonie et d’Assyrie , 23.

19 The iconography of such dieties, states Frankfort, reveals a single underlying idea. Op. cit., 282. According to Van Dijk, “les différents dieux des panthéons locaux sont les ‘Erscheinungsformen’—des formes pluralistes—d’une même divinité.” “Le Motif Cosmique dans la Pensée Sumérienne,” 4.

But Jeremias in his discussion of these “monotheistic streams” described the supreme god as an “invisible divine power.” It is difficult to imagine a less appropriate description of An or any of his representative deities. In the texts An is not only the “light of the gods,” but a light of “terrifying glory.” Alfred Jeremias, Handbuch der Altorientalischen Geisteskultur, 227. Also Jeremias, Monotheistische Strömungen . . .

If only one god prevailed in the beginning, how did the Sumero-Babylonian religion acquire its almost endless number of deities? Langdon writes: “By giving special names to the functions of each deity [or representative of An] the theologians obtained an enormous pantheon, and by assigning special functions of the three great gods to their sons, and again giving special names to their functions the parent tree became a forest of gods and minor deities.” Op. cit., 91.

 

20  Langdon, op. cit., 124.

21  Pyramid Texts 1039-40

22 See especially the section on “The Circle of the Gods”. 23 See the discussion of the Egyptian “Unmoved Mover”. 24  Clark, op. cit., 79.

25  Piankoff, The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon , 121.

26  See the section on the cosmic womb.

27  Evelyn-White, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, 11.

28  Op. cit., 103.

29  Budge, Osiris; the Egyptian Religion of Resurrection , 1-23.

30  Budge, Gods , Vol. I, 131.

31 Of Osiris Budge writes, “His Body formed the circle of the Tuat . . . Osiris enshrined within himself all the cosmic gods  or gods of nature.” From Fetish to God , 183.

32  Les Origines de l’Histoire , 58.

33  Gods, Vol. I, 329.

34  Quoted in The Cambridge Ancient History , Vol. I, Part 2, 102.

35  Langdon, op. cit., 194.

36  Ibid., 105.

37  Ibid., 119.

38  Van Dijk, op. cit,, 16ff.

39 Ibid., 23. Van Dijk writes (p. 32): “Cette pensée que le jour de l’origine est devenu le prototype des autres jours où, tant dans la mythologie que dans l’histoire sumérienne, de grandes catastrophes se sont produites, se trouve perpétuée dans l’expression . . . comme dans les temps lointains.’“

40  Alexander, Latin American Mythology, 66.

41  Perry, Lord of the Four Quarters, 195. Burland, The Gods of Mexico , 33, 47.

42  León-Portilla, Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico , 40-41.

43  Quoted in Burland, op. cit., 149.

44  Alexander, op. cit., 69.

45  Perry, op. cit., 196.

46  Guenon, Le Roi du Monde , 13ff. Perry, op cit., 126ff.

47 Fluegel, Philosophy, Qabbala and Vedanta, Vol. I, 179. Of Vishnu, the inscription on the famous Iron Pillar of Delhi declares, “The beauty of that king’s countenance was as that of the full moon [candra ];—by him, with his own arm, sole world-wide dominion was acquired and long held; and although, as if wearied, he has in bodily form quitted this earth, and passed to the other-world country won by his merit, yet, like the embers of a quenched fire in a great forest, the glow of his foe-destroying energy quits not the earth . . .” Vincent A. Smith, “ The Iron Pillar of Delhi,”6.

48  Carnoy, Iranian mythology, 304-5; Darmesteter, The Zend-Avesta , lxv, lxxxviii, 10-11.

49  Faber, The Origins of Pagan Idolatry, Vol. II, 139; Ferguson, Chinese Mythology , 21.

50  Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, 92ff., 56, 202ff.; MacCulloch, Eddic Mythology , 32, 39, 113-14, 133.

51  Les Origines de l’Histoire , Vol. I, 58.

52  Kingship, 7.

53  Op. cit., 148.

 

54  Ibid., 149.

55  Ibid., 51.

56  Canney, “Ancient Conceptions of Kingship,” 74n.

57 “Aus dem Anspruch des Gottkönigtums ergibt sich der des Weltimperiums. Der Heros Ninib wird in einem zweisprachigen Text als König eingeführt, dessen Herrschaft bis an die Grenzen Himmels und der Erde leuchten soll . . . Dasselbe gilt vom historischen König. Naramsin besteigt als Eroberer den Weltberg. Wie jeder Kult als kosmisch gilt, so wird jede Stadt, jedes Land, jedes Reich als Kosmos angesehen. Nicht die Grösse des Territoriums, sondern die Idee ist massgebend. Auch ein Stadtkonig nennt sich in diesem Sinne lugal kalama, ‘Weltkönig.’ Die Länderbezeichnungen und Königstitel sind in diesem Sinne kosmisch gemeint: šar kibrât irbitti ‘König der vier Weltteile,’ šar kissati ‘König des Weltalls.’“ Handbuch, 178.

58  Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 405.

59  Canney, op. cit., 74.

60 Ridgeway, Dramas and Dramatic Dances of Non-European Races, 6. Compare the role of the Irish king: “Prosperity was supposed to characterize every good king’s reign in Ireland, perhaps pointing to earlier belief in his divinity and the dependence of fertility on him; but the result is precisely that which everywhere marked the golden age.” MacCulloch, Celtic Mythology , 137-38.

61  Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis , 258.

62  J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya History and Religion, 232.

63  Ridgeway, The Origin of Tragedy; and Dramas and Dramatic Dances.

64  Graves and Patai, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis, 61; Ginzberg, The legend of the Jews, Vol. I, 59.

65  Ginzberg, op. cit., 60.

66 The Book of the Secrets of Enoch 31:3, in Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the old Testament, Vol. II,  450.

67  Jung, op. cit., 398-99.

68  Ginzberg, op. cit., 64; Graves and Patai, op. cit., 62.

69  Quoted in Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, 4.

70 “Adam-Kadmon ist nach der Kabbala der erste Mensch, der Urmensch, die erste aus dem Unendlichen, der absoluten Vollkommenheit (En Sof), unmittelbar hervorgehende Emanation, in der ältesten hebräischen Mystik Gott selber.” Schwabe, Archetyp und Tierkreis, 9.

71 “El insânul-qadim, c’est-à-dire l’Homme primordial,’ est, en arabe, une des désignations de l’’Homme universel’ (synonyme d’El-insânul-kamil, qui est littéralement l’’Homme parfait’ on total); c’est exactement l’Adam Qadmon hébraique.” Guenon, Formes Traditionelles et Cycles Cosmiques, 64n.

72 “Les Ophites ou Nahasséniens, dans les premiers siècles du christianisme, avaient adopté cette idée due Adam Qadmon dans leur Adamas . . . qu’ils appelaient ‘l’Homme d’en haut,’ traduction exacte du titre de la Kabbale, ‘l’Adam supérieur.’  A leur tour, les Barbélonites, qui étaient une branché dérivée des Ophites, disaient que Logos et Ennoia, par leur concours, avaient produit Autogénes (Qadmon), type de la grande lumière et entouré de quatre luminaires cosmique . . . Remarquons que dans un des morceaux cosmogoniques, cousus maladroitement les uns au bout des autres, que nous offrent les extraits du Sanchoniathon de Philon de Byblos, tels que nous les possédons, Epigeios ou Autochthon, c’est-à-dire Âdâm (avec la mème allusion a adâmâth que dans le texte de la Genèse), nait à l’orignine des choses due dieu supreme ‘Elioûn, et est identique à Ouranos . . .” Lenormant, Les Origines de l’Histoire, 41n.

73  Drower, The Coronation of the Great Šišlam , IX.

74  Lenormant, Les Origines De l’Histoire, 170.

75  Carnoy, op. cit., 293ff.

76  Dresden, “Mythology of Ancient Iran,” 342.

77  Dixon, Oceanic Mythology, 23-27.

78  Hocart, Kings and Councilors, 53.

 

79  Alexander, North American Mythology, 105-6.

80  Uno Holmberg, Siberian Mythology , 316.

81  De Santillana and von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill, 130.

82  Uno Holmberg, Der Baum des Lebens, 59-60.

83  Ancient Egypt, Vol. I, 437-38.

84  Jung, op. cit., 385, 409.

85 Pyramid Text 148-49. “Man kann hier wohl sogar soweit gehen dass alle anderen Götter in Atum beschlossen sind,” Writes L. Grevan, Der Ka in Theologie unb Königskult der Ägypter des Alten Reichs , 15.

86  Budge, Gods , Vol.I, 111.

87 Ibid.

88  Clark, Myth and Symbol, 61-63

89  Sturluson, The Prose Edda.

90  Zaehner, Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma, 137.

91  Uno Holmberg, Siberian Mythology, 372.

92  Zaehner, op. cit., 140.

93  Faber, op. cit., Vol. II, 172.

94  Ibid., 42.

95  Fluegel, op. cit., k203-4.

96  Ibid., 202.

97 Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, 21. 98 Frazer, The Golden Bough, abridged edition, 675. 99  Ovid, The Metamophoses, 33-34.

100  Quoted in Campbell, Occidental Mythology, 322-23.

101  Hildegard and Julius Lewy, “The Origin of the Week and the Oldest West Asiatic Calendar.”

102  Faber op cit., Vol. II, 235. Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy, 152.

103  Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, 136-37.

104  Langdon, op. cit., 55; Jermias, Handbuch, 137, 278.

105  Handbuch, 92, 137.

106  O’Neill, The Night of the Gods, 77.

107  Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 32-33; Faber, op. cit., 223.

108  Faber, op. cit., 491; Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, 248-49n.

109  “Konig Yima and Saturn,” 95aff.

110  O’Neill, op. cit., 778-79.

111  De Santillana and von Dechend, op. cit., 129.

112  Makemson, The Morning Star Rises, 47ff.

113  Collitz, op. cit., 102; Faber, op. cit., 167; O’Neill, op. cit., 778.

114  Quoted in de Santillana and von Dechend, op. cit., 222.

115 Ibid.

116  Campbell, Occidental Mythology, 118. On the meaning of an-ki, usually translated “heaven and earth,” see here.

 

117  Origin and Significance of the Mâgen Dâwîd,” 356-57.

118  Ibid., 354-56

119  Zaehner, op. cit., 222.

120  Ibid., 112.

121  Ibid., 112-113, 136.

122  Jung, op. cit., 409.

123 Ibid., 409, 493, 335; also Jung, Aion, 197, 208. 124  De Santillana and von Dechend, op. cit., 147. 125  Orphic Hymns, no. 13.

126  De Santillana and von Dechend, op. cit., 130.

127  Schwabe, op. cit., 8.

128  Olcott, Myths of the Sun, 141-42.

129  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 627.

130  Ibid., 76.

131  Boll, “Kronos-Helios,” 343, R8.

132  Bouché-Leclerq, L’Astrologie Grecque , 93, note 2.

133  Hyginus, Poetica astronomica II, 42.

134  This explanation is tentatively accepted by Bouché-Leclerq, op. cit., 93, note 2.

135 “Allein seither ist völlig klar geworden und wohl auch allgemein zugestanden, dass die Gleichsetzung von Kronos, dem Gotte des Planeten Saturn, mit dem Sonnengotte weit vor jedem möglichen griechischen Missverständnis liegt: es handelt sich um ein altes und durch Keilinschriften vollkommen sicher bezeugtes Stuck des babylonischen Sternglaubens . . .” Boll, op. cit., 343.

136  Plato, Epinomis, 987c.

137 Ibid.

138 “Ich habe seitdem die gleiche Variante noch an verschiedenen Stellen beobachtet: in Ptolem. Tetrab, p. 67, 8 schreiben die zwei alten Ausgaben Kronon während die beste Hs. V (Vatic. 1038) hlion hat; bei Rhetorios in Catal, codd. astrol. VII 203, 9 steht in dem Hss. R V Kronon, in T hlion: gemeint ist hier wie bei Ptolemaios der Planet Saturn. auffallender und wohl kaum ursprünglich ist die gleiche Variante in dem Pinax des Kebes, wo die 3. Hand des sehr späten Cod. C (XV. Jahr.) und dije Hs. Meibojms am Rande zweimal (p. 1, 1.2, 7 Pr.) den Namen (Kronon) des Gottes, dem der Tempel mit jenem Pinaz geweiht ist, durch ‘Hlion ersetzen.” Op. cit., 344.

139 “So viel ist aber sicher, dass nach einer oft bezeugten Vorstellung der Babylonier und Syrer Kronos und Helios eine und dieselbe Gottheit sind, die sich in den zwei mächtigsten Gestirnen des Tages und der Nacht offenbarte,” Ibid., 345-46. It must be emphasized, however, that the proposed distinction between day and night sun is unnecessary. There is only one primitive sun: Kronos-Helios.

140  Diodorus II. 30-33.

141  Jastrow, “Sun and Saturn “, 163-78

142  Ibid., 171.

143  Semitic Mythology, 55.

144  Albright, “The Mouth of the Rivers,” 165.

145  Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria , 57.

146  Hildegard Lewy, “Origin and Significance of the Mâgen Dâwîd,” 335.

147  Die Kosmologie der Babylonier , 115-116, 136ff.

 

148  Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy , 129.

149  Schwabe, Archetyp und Tierkreis , 492.

150  This is, for example, the opinion of both Boll and Jastrow, in the articles cited above.

151  Chapter II.

152 E. Neumann, for example, speaks of a presolar ritual in which “the reckoning of time begins and ends with nightfall.  Even in Egypt the evening is the time of ‘birth,’ and the morning, when the luminous world of the stars vanishes, is a time of death, in which the day-time sky devours the children of night. This conception, which was universal among early mankind, becomes understandable if we free ourselves from the correlation day=sun.” The Great Mother, 26.

One of the many peculiarities of the Egyptian sun-god is that he not only brings the day, but shines at “night.” The Book of the Dead reads, “I am that god Re who shineth in the night.” To the “father of the gods” the Egyptians sang, “ . . . thou lightest up the habitation of the night . . .” Re Harmachis, in the Dendera temple inscriptions appears as “the shining Horus, the ray of light in the night.” Budge, op. cit., Chapter CXXXI; Jung, Symbols of Transformation, 269; Brugsch, Thesaurus Inscriptionum Ägyptiacarum, 16.

In this connection one cannot fail to notice the number of ancient gods whom scholars customarily deem “night sums.” Egypt is a good example. The popular god Osiris is almost always termed a sun of night, as in Ptah Seker. Budge, op. cit., 7n, follows a well-established practice when he designates Atum “a form of Re and the type of the night sun.” The same appellation is given to the Sumero-Babylonian Tammuz, the Hindu Varuna and Yama, the Iranian Yima, and the Greek Dionysus to name a few of many examples. In the conventional view Saturn, for reasons which remain unspecified, is the planetary representative of the night sun.

153 On the original priority of the night among the Hebrews and Arabs see Ignaz Goldziher, Mythology Among the Hebrews, 62-74. In Babylonia it was in “later times” that “the reckoning of time was altered to the extent of making the day begin with sunrise, instead of with the approach of night.” Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria , 78.

154  Faber, The Origins of Pagan Idolatry, Vol. I, 236-37.

155  Albright, op. cit., 165-66.

156  Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol.II, 102.

157 An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolic Philosophy, LXXIX.

158  See Uno Holmberg, Die Religiösen Vorstellungen der Altaischen Völker, 37.

159  Quoted in Faber,A Dissertation on the Cabiri, Vol. I, 134.

160  Schlegel, L’Uranographie Chinoise, 630-31.

161  Ibid., 631.

162 De Saussure, “Le Système Cosmologique Sino-Iranienne,” 235-97; “La Série Septénaire, Cosmologique et Planétaire,” 333-70; see discussion of de Saussure’s findings.

163  Langdon, op. cit., 94.

164  On Anu as the ruler of the celestial pole, see also Jensen, op. cit., 17-19.

165  Ibid., 136.

166  Quoted in Campbell, Occidental Mythology, 243 [my italics—D. Talbott].

167  Quoted in O’Neill, The Night of the gods, 737 [my italics—D. Talbott].

168  Schlegel, op. cit., 631.

169  Makemson, The Morning Star Rises , 5.

170  Alexander, North American Mythology, 95.

171  Coomaraswamy and Nivedita, Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists, 378.

172  Langdon, Sumerian Liturgical Texts , 137.

173  Lenormant, Origines de l’Histroire , Vol. I, 393.

174  Schwabe, op. cit., 8, 388.

 

175  Op. cit., 748.

176  The Tree at the Navel of the Earth, 124.

177  Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, 59.

178  Ibid., 41.

179  Budge, Gods , Vol. I, 309.

180  Piankoff, The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 36.

181  Les Origines de la Genèse et l’Enseignement des Temples de l’Ancienne Egypte, 20-21, n.2.

182  Clark, op. cit., 58.

183  Ibid., 58.

184  Renouf, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 147.

185  Faulkner, The coffin Texts, Spell 257.

186  Budge, From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt, 394.

187  Pyramid Texts 1016.

188  Pyramid Texts 1168-70

189  Quoted in Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, 29.

190  Hence Re not only “comes out” in the Tuat, but “rests” there also. Piankoff, The Litany of Re ,25.

191  Budge, The Book of the Dead, 398.

192  Ibid., 644.

193  From Fetish to God, 190.

194  Renouf, op. cit., 120.

195  Budge, The Book of the Dead, 260.

196  Renouf, op cit., 7.

197  Budge, The Book of the Dead, 388-89.

198  Ibid., 251.

199  Budge, The Papyrus of Ani, 123,134.

200  Ibid., 105.

201  Budge, Gods, Vol, I, 332.

202  Pyramid Text, 854.

203  Massey, Ancient Egypt, 426.

204  Énel, op. cit., 117.

205  Budge, A Hieroglyphic Vocabulary to the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead, 174.

206  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 508-9.

207  Renouf, op. cit., 151.

208  Ibid., 67.

209  Ibid., 45.

210  Ibid., 113.

211  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 106.

212  Piankoff, The Litany of Re, 40-41.

 

213  Budge, From Fetish to God , 401.

214  Jensen, op. cit., 11.

215  Ibid.k, 16-19; Brown, Researches into the Origins of the Primitive Constellations, Vol. I, 269; Vol. II, 191.

216 Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 94; Jensen, op. cit., 17ff. I certainly cannot accept, however, Jensen’s identification of Anu with the pole of the ecliptic.

217  Sayce, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, 482.

218  Op. cit., Vol. II, 184, 190.

219  Lenormant, op. cit., 393. Ea (Eriki) was the “king of destinies, stability and justice.” O’Neill, op. cit., 490.

220  Langdon, Sumerian Liturgical Texts, 137.

221  Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 172.

222  Sayce, op. cit., 177 note 1.

223  Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 387.

224  Sayce, op. cit., 177 note 1.

225  Ibid., 173.

226  Op. cit., Vol. II, 191.

227  Jastrow, op. cit., 638-41.

228  Akkadian Genesis , 24, quoted in O’Neill, op. cit., 78.

229 Nuttall, Fundamental Principles, quoting an article in the London Standard, October 19, 1894, entitled “A prayer meeting of the star-worshippers.”

230  Bhagavata Purana, Chapter 4.

231  Eggeling, Satapatha-Brahmana IV, 3, 4, 9. emphasis added.

232  Agrawala, Sparks from the Vedic Fire, 82-83.

233  Velanker, Rgveda Mandala VII, 147.

234  Agrawala, op. cit., 66.

235  Chatterji, The Bhagavad Gita, 145.

236  Études sur l’Hindouisme, 19.

237 Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads, Vol. I, 96; Coomaraswamy, A New Approach to the Vedas, 8, 60-61, 92, note 71.

238  Perry, Lord of the Four Quarters, 122.

239  Ibid., 121-22.

240  Whitney, Atharva Veda, XIX, 45.4.

241  Eggeling, Satapatha Brahmana III, 6.3.15.

242  Quoted in de Santillana and von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill, 138.

243  Velanker, op. cit., 219.

244  Op. cit., 40, citing Rig Veda X.82.6.

245  Ibid., 70.

246  The Thousand Syllabled Speech, Vol. I, 112.

247  Eggeling, Satapatha Abrahmana II.5.1.14; see also note 4, p. 36; Coomaraswamy, A New Approach, 68.

248  Coomaraswamy, Elements of Buddhist Iconography, 42-43. Ibid., 43-45, 52, 55.

 

Comparable to the firmly seated position of the Egyptian great god is the position of the “resting” or “meditating” Buddha. The Buddha “sat himself down cross-legged in an unconquerable position, from which not even the descent of a hundred thunderbolts at once could have dislodged him.” Quoted in Campbell, Oriental Mythology, 16.

249  Schlegel, op. cit., 507.

250  Jung, Alchemical Studies, 20.

251  Ibid., 25.

252  “Seelische Führung in Lebenden Taoismus,” in Yoga und Meditation im Ostem und im Westen, 193.

253  Op. cit., 631.

254  “La Série Septenaire, Cosmologique et Planétaire,” 342.

255  “Origine Chinoise de la Cosmologie Iranienne,” 305.

256  Op. cit., 161, emphasis added.

257  Ibid., 42, 56, 95; Burland, The Gods of Mexico, 94.

258  Op. cit., 77; see also p. 80.

259  Alexander, op.cit., 95-96.

260  Stevenson, The Zuni Indians, 46, 80.

261  Darmesteter, The Zend Avesta, Miher Yast XII, 49-50.

262  “Le Système Cosmologique,” 292-3.

263  Studies in The Iconography of Cosmic Kingship. 13.

264 Bloch, “Le Symbolisme Cosmique et les Monuments Religieux dans l’Italie Ancienne,” 24-25; sell also L’Orange, op. cit., 29.

265  Op. cit., 28-29.

266  “The Ideas of the Western Semites Concerning the Navel of the Earth,” 55.

267  Isaiah 14: 13-14.

268  Aion, 135.

269  Jung, Alchemical Studies, 209 note 8.

270  Ibid., 226.

271 B.L. Goff, for example, discusses the sign as an “explicit” solar form in Mesopotamia. Why explicit? Because “it is surrounded by rays.” Goff, Symbols of Prehistoric Mesopotamia, 22.

272  This has, in fact, become the popular explanation of the Egyptian Aten.

273  Reymond, The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian Temple, 12-13, 65-67, 86.

274  Ibid, 12-13.

275  Ibid., 185; Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods, 38 note 21.

276  Faulkner, The Coffin Texts, 100.

277  Lacau, Traduction des Textes des Cercueils du Moyen Empire, 30.

278  Budge, The Gods of the Egyptian, Vol, I, 340.

279  Lacau, op. cit., 43.

280  Faulkner, op.cit., 43.

281  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 382. Tem is also “the dweller in his disk.” Ibid., 94.

282  Piankoff, The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 11.

283  Gods, Vol. II, 69.

 

284 The Hebrew Shekinah was a “cloud of glory,” recalled as the visible dwelling of God. Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 138- 40.

285 A Dictionary of Symbols , 40. This is what a Babylonian text recalls as the “veil of gold in the midst of heaven”; the texts compare it to a crown. Sayce, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, 274. To the Hindus this was the Khvarenah, “the Awful Royal Glory.” Perry, Lord of the Four Quarters, 143.

286  Brown, Researches into the Origins of the Primitive Constellations, 185.

287 Lenormant, Les Origines de l’Histoire , Vol. I, 13. The Babylonian sun-god “rises” within the enclosure, but “sets”  within it also. Sayce, op.cit., 171,513. The subject is the central sun.

288  Best, The Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori, 35-36.

289  Faulkner, op. cit., 102.

290  Ant. Rom. lib. i cap. 23 quoted in Faber, A Dissertation on the Cabiri, 66.

291  O’Neill, The Night of the Gods, 32.

292  Ibid., 32.

293  Massey, Ancient Egypt, 373.

294  See O’Neill, op. cit., 32-35, 615ff. Guenon, Formes Traditionelles et Cycles Cosmiques, 38; Le Roi du Monde .

295 Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, 74. 296 Major Sandman Holmberg, The God Ptah, 119. 297  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 577. 298  Ibid., 493.

299  Renouf, Egyptian Book of the Dead, 108.

300  Ibid. ., 133.

301  Op. cit., 56.

302  Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 137, citing Orphic Hymn 71.

303 Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 413. 304  Agrawala, Sparks from the Vedic Fire, 23ff. 305  Op. cit., 413-415.

306  Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, 46-47; Alchemical Studies , 82.

307  Budge, The Egyptian book of the Dead, 104.

308  Frankfort, op. cit., 44.

309  Gods, Vol. I, 291, summarizing the research of Brugsch.

310  Reymond, op. cit., 66.

311  On the rite of “stretching the cord” see Ibid., 239, 308ff.

312  Semitic Mythology, 109.

313  De Santillana and von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill, 132-133, citing Orphic Hymn 13.

314  Onians, The Origins of European Thought, 317.

315  Budge, The Papyrus of Ani, 182.

316  Renouf, op. cit., 203.

317  Op. cit., 239.

318  Piankoff, The Litany of Re, 52.

319  Faulkner, op. cit., 126.

 

320  Zaehner, Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma, 111ff.

321  Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, 11, 12, 44ff.

322  Renouf, op. cit., 51.

323  Ibid., 258.

324  Piankoff, The Wandering of the Soul, 12.

325  Renouf, op. cit., 264.

326  Piankoff, The Wandering of the Soul, 27.

327  Piankoff, Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 34.

328  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 189.

329  Faulkner, op. cit., 4.

330  Hassan, Hymnes Religieux du Moyen Empire, 100/

331  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 644.

332  Hassan, op. cit., 54.

333  Pyramid Text 732.

334  Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, 14.

335  Budge, Gods , Vol. I, 309.

336  Ibid., 308.

337  Ibid., 314.

338  Piankoff, Wandering of the Soul, 87.

339  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 192.

340  Reymond, op. cit., 119.

341  Thus, the Litany of Re invokes the god as “the One Joined Together.”

342  Clark, op. cit., 74.

343  Renouf, op. cit., 39.

344  Budge, The Egyptian book of the Dead, 561.

345  Renouf, op. cit., 116.

346  Budge, The Papyrus of Ani, 29.

347  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 29; see also Piankoff, The Litany of Re, 29.

348  Lacau, op. cit., 33.

349 It can hardly be doubted that the assembly in heaven served as the prototype of all sacred assemblies on earth: just as the king represented the Universal Monarch, his councilors or assistants answered to the circle of secondary divinities around the central sun. Among the Greeks, notes Onians, “a circle appears to have been the ritually desirable form for a gathering.” Op. cit., 444. Similarly, the Sumerian GIN, “to assemble,” possesses the sense “to circle, turn, enclose.” Langdon, A Sumerian Grammar, 216. This aspect of the sanctified assembly is, of course, universal. (Even today we speak of a circle or band of assistants, followers, or companions without really knowing why.)

350  Campbell, Occidental Mythology, 43.

351  The Great Mother, 227.

352  The Origins of Pagan Idolatry.

353  Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, 92.

354  Agrawala, The Thousand Syllabled Speech, 115.

 

355  Coomaraswamy, Elements of Buddhist Iconography, 23.

356  MacCulloch, Eddic Mythology, 174.

357  Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, 281.

358  Best, op. cit.,

359  Eggeling, The Satapatha Brahmana, Part II, 394.

360  Brown, op. cit., Vol. I, 268.

361  Preface to Perry, op. cit.

362  Thousand Syllabled Speech, 127.

363  “Die Schöpterische Mutter Göttin,” 221-324.

364  Patai, op. cit., 239.

365  Evans-Wentz, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, 127.

366  Pyramid Text 838.

367  Budge, Egyptian Book of the Dead, 4.

368  Bleeker, Hathor and Thoth, 48.

369  Budge, From Fetish to God, 30; see also Pyramid Text 1607.

370  Brugsch, Religion, 324.

371  Mythological Papyri, 6.

372  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 92.

373  See, for example, the use of the sign O in Budge, Papyrus of Ani, 71.

374  Faulkner, op. cit., 258.

375  Pyramid Text 990.

376  Pyramid Text 532.

377  Pyramid Text 1416.

378  Pyramid Text 1688

379  Renouf, op. cit., 148.

380  Budge, From Fetish to God, 416.

381  Budge, Gods , Vol. II, 260.

382  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 180.

383  Frankfort, op. cit., 177.

384  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 431.

385  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 134.

386  Frankfort, op.cit., 180.

387  Ibid., 177.

388  Budge, Osiris: the Egyptian Religion of Resurrection, 68.

389  Pyramid Text 1505.

390  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 337.

391  Frankfort, op. cit., 42.

392  Pyramid Text 532.

 

393  Pyramid Text 1416-17.

394  Frankfort, op. cit., 177.

395  Ibid., 177; see Pyramid Text 782.

396  Ibid., 177.

397  Ibid., 180.

398  Ward, The Cylinder Seals of Western Asia, 154.

399  Onians, 182.

400  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 134.

401  Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, 6.

402  Renouf, op. cit., 265.

403  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 594.

404  Ibid., 392.

405  Faulkner, op. cit., 125.

406  Renouf, op. cit., 205.

407  Pyramid Text 108.

408  Budge, Gods , Vol. I, 451.

409  De Santillana and von Dechend, op. cit., 147.

410  Clark, op. cit., 41.

411  Énel, Les Origines de las Genese et l’Enseignement des Temples de l’Ancienne Egypte, 13 note 4.

412  Ibid., 11ff.

413  Piankoff, The Litany of Re, 54.

414  Schafer, “Altägyptische Bilder der Auf- und Untergehenden Sonne,” 20.

415  Origins, 165.

416  Patterns, 423. See also Eliade, Myth of the Eternal Return.

417  Virgil, Georgics , ii. 173ff.

418  Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, 189ff.; Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 99.

419  De Saussure, “Le Systeme Cosmologique Sino-Iranienne.”

420  The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. II, 94.

421  Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, XII.

422  Jensen, op. cit., 188ff.; Langdon, op. cit,. 102.

423  The Collection of the Sumerian Temple Hymns, 136.

424  Van Dijk, “Le Motif Cosmique dans la Pensée Sumérienne,” 49.

425  Op. cit., 199.

426  Lenormant, Les Origines de l’Histoire, Vol. II, 21.

427  Guenon, Le Roi du Monde, 95.

428  Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, 58-59, 222.

429  Ibid., 58-59.

430  De Saussure, “Origines Chinoise de las Cosmologie Iranienne,” 303.

 

431  Renouf, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 193-94.

432  Budge, op. cit., Vol. II, 119.

433  Pyramid Text 1215-20.

434  Budge, op. cit., Vol. I, 340.

435  Reymond, The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian Temple, 84.

436 Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 7. But one of the Egyptian phrases for the sacred land is Neter-ta-Mehti, rendered by Brugsch as “das nordliche Gottesland”—“the northern land of the gods,” This, states Massey, was “the polar paradise in heaven, not an elevated part of our earth.” See Massey, Ancient Egypt, 378.

437  Gaster, Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament, 24.

438  Melville, Children of the Rainbow, 10.

439  See for example the review by Gaster, op. cit., 24ff.

440  Op. cit., 18.

441  Coomaraswamy, Elements of Buddhist Iconography, 27.

442  Ibid., 42.

443  Ibid., 52.

444  Perry, Lord of the Four Quarters, 131.

445  Zaehner, Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma, 111-13, 136, 222.

446  De Santillana and von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill, 86ff.

As soon as one compares the imagery of Saturn’s revolving wheel with corresponding images of the Saturnian isle, egg, cord, and girdle, one is forced to think beyond coincidence. The varied symbolism hearkens to a singular form. When Snorri Sturluson speaks of Amlodhi’s churning wheel as the “Island Mill,” he preserves (probably unwittingly) an important connection: in the original myth the turning island and the mill wheel were the same thing.

447  Magoun, The Kalevala, 55-61.

448  De Santillana and von Dechend, op. cit., 111.

449  Keith, Indian Mythology, 138.

450  Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol. I, 215, 225.

451  Ibid., 290.

452  Ibid., 298.

453  L’Orange, Studies in the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, 48ff.

454  Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition, 26.

455  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 189.

456  Reymond, op. cit., 5, note 23.

The Throne, as observed by Énel, is not merely the seat of the god, but an enclosure. The primeval sun “dwells” in his throne. Les Origines de la Genèse, et l’Enseignement des Temples de l’Ancienne Egypte, 221. The most common Egyptian word for “throne” is ast, often written with the determinative  which means “chamber,” “abode.” Ast signifies the god’s “place”—not just any place, but the place—the ast ab (“place of the heart”), ast urt (“great place”), ast hetep (“place of rest”), or ast maat, (“place of regularity”).

457  Op. cit., 83.

458  Ibid., 84.

459  Clark, op. cit., 59.

460  Ibid., 177.

461  Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods, 380 note 21.

 

462  Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament.

463  Budge, From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt, 273. The name of the celestial city of Pe means simply “seat” or “throne.”

464  Op. cit., 53.

465  Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 47.

466  Op. cit., 13,20.

467  Langdon, Sumerian Liturgies and Psalms, 297.

468  Sjöberg and Bergmann, op. cit., 2.

469  Ibid., 89.

470  Kramer, From the Tablets of Sumer, 87.

471 Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 195. The same can be said of the celestial city of Eridu, which like Dilmun served as the primeval home of Enki. Eridu, “teeming with fertility,” floated on the cosmic sea Apsu, and more than one writer has asserted, with Pinches, that Enki’s city was “as a garden of Eden.” Sayce, Gifford Lectures, 386; Albright, “The Mouth of the Rivers.” Pinches’ comment is quoted in Thompson, The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, lvi.

472  Revelation 21:11.

473  Psalm 48:2.

474  The Origins of Pagan Idolatry, 350-51.

475  Ezekiel 27: 3-4; 28: 13 (RSV).

476  Darmesteter, The Zend Avesta, I, 16-19.

477  Faber, op. cit., 326, 341.

478  See the discussion of the Chinese polar mount Kwen-lun.

479  Alexander, Latin American Mythology, 114, 178.

480  Pyramid Text 188.

481 Cook, op. cit., Vol. I, 271. Cook’s entire discussion (Vol. I, 253-83) assumes the wheel to be synonymous with the solar orb.

482  Nuemann, The Great Mother, 238.

483  Ibid., 98.

484 Hocart, Kingship, 80. The significance is too often missed: after informing us that the throne was the glyph of Isis, Budge continues, “but we have no means of connecting it with the attributes of the goddess in such a way as to give a rational explanation of her name, and all derivations hitherto proposed must be regarded as mere guesses.” Budge, Gods, Vol. II,

202. But is it a “mere guess” to connect the Isis-throne with the enclosure of the primeval womb? (The Egyptian ast, “throne,” means “enclosure,” as we have seen.)

485  Pyramid Texts 178, 1605.

486  Accordingly, the sun in the cosmic womb appears as the “boy in the city.” Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 274.

487  Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 59.

488  Graves, The Greek Myths, 223.

489  Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, 133.

490  Revelation 17: 1-2, 5, 18.

491  Op. cit., 95.

492  Patterns in Comparative Religion, 19-20.

493  The Myth of the Eternal Return, 8-9.

494  II Baruch IV: 2-4.

 

495  Patterns in Comparative Religion, 9.

496  Tucci, The Theory and Practice of the Mandala, 23.

497  Ibid, 23.

498  Op. cit., 9ff.

499  Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 15-16.

500  Jung and Kerenyi, Essays on a Science of Mythology, 12.

501 Many Egyptologists, however, make no distinction between the cosmic and the local cities. Thus Budge, speaking of the actual Egyptian city of Henen-su (Herakleopolis), tells us that this habitation “is often referred to in the Book of the Dead, and a number of important mythological events are said to have taken place there. Thus it was here that Re rose for the first time when the heavens and the earth were created, and it was this rising which formed the first great act of creation . . . Osiris was here crowned lord of the universe . . . In this place the souls of the beatified found a place of rest in the realm of Osiris . . .” Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 58-59. That these were cosmic, not geographical places and events, should be obvious.

502  Frankfort, op. cit., 90.

503 Roscher, Omphalos; Neue Omphalosstudien; Der Omphalosgedanke bei Verschiedenen Völkern; Muller, Die Heilige Stadt.

504  Brown, Eradinus: River and Constellation; de Saussure, “Origins Chinoise de la Cosmologie Iranienne.”

505  W.T. Warren, Paradise Found, 141 note 3; O’Neill, The Night of the Gods, 359.

506  Uno Holmberg, Siberian Mythology, 308.

507  Guenon, op. cit., 79.

508  Makemson, The Morning Star Rises, 10; Heyerdahl, Kon-Tiki, 141.

509  Nuttall, Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilization, 133.

510  W.T. Warren, op. cit., 248, note 1.

511 Faber, op. cit., Vol. III, 83. 512 Roscher, Omphalos, 20ff. 513  Op. cit., 235.

514  Léon-Portilla, Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico, 63.

515  Sayce, Gifford Lectures, 386.

516  Op. cit., 178.

517  Faber, A Dissertation on the Cabire, Vol. I, 73.

518  Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts V, 214ff.

519  Wensinck, “The Ideas of the Western Semites Concerning the Navel of the Earth,” 36.

520  Ibid., 15.

521  Ibid., 55.

522  Jung, Aion, 125.

523  Roscher, Omphalos, 43.

524  The Tree at the Navel of the Earth, 39.

525  Op. cit., 127.

526  Der Baum des Lebens, 95.

527  Faber, Origins of Pagan Idolatry, Vol. III, 90.

528  Ibid., 92.

529  Coomaraswamy, Elements of Buddhist Iconography, 19.

 

530  Ibid., 18.

531  Perry, Lord of the Four Quarters, 184.

532  Onians, The Origins of European Thought, 316.

533  Sayce, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, 478.

534  Wensinck, “The Ocean in the Literature of the Western Semites,” 25.

535  Herodotus iv, 36.

536  Herodotus iv, 45.

537  In the Orphic description of the primeval Nous or Mind, “the circling ocean was his belt.” See our chapter II.

538  Evelyn-White, Hesiod 229ff.

539  Clark, Myth and Symbol, 86.

540  Budge, The Papyrus of Ani, 187.

541  See Pyramid Texts 77 and 512.

542  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 152.

543  Clark, op. cit., 117.

544  Maj Sandman Holmberg, The God Ptah, 106.

545  Op. cit., 142.

546  Kees, “Kulttopographische und Mythologische Beträge,” 151.

547  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 97; Reymond, op. cit., 152.

548  Op. cit., 80.

549  Budge, Egyptian Book of the Dead, 170.

550  Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 105.

551 Sayce, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, 487. 552 Jeremias, Handbuch der Altorientalischen Geisteskultur, 31. 553  Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 309.

554  Jensen, op. cit., 248-467.

555  Genesis 2:10

556 Gaster, Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament, 27-28; Wensinck, “The Ocean in the Literature of the Western Semites,” 59-60; see also our section on “The Foundation Stone”.

557  Alexander, North American Mythology, 159.

558  W.T. Warren, Paradise Found, 129; O’Neill, The Night of the Gods, 909.

559  Lenormant, Les Origines de l’Histoire, 26.

560  Ibid., 19-21.

561  Ibid., 27-29.

562  Uno Holmberg, Die Religiösen Vorstellungen der Altaischen Völker, 86-87; Ser Baum des Lebens, 71ff.

563  Albright, “The Mouth of the Rivers,” 189.

564  Brown, Eradinus: River and constellation, 46.

565 Budge, From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt, 173. 566 Albright, “The Goddess of Life and Wisdom” 261. 567  Gaster, op. cit., 27.

 

568  Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. II, 706.

569  Gaster, op. cit., 27.

570  Brown, op. cit., 46.

571 A Dictionary of Symbols, 127. The mystic idea “is confirmed and reinforced when it is portrayed in architectural plans: whether in the cloister, the garden or the patio, the fountain occupies the centre position, at least in the majority of architectural works built during periods within the symbolist tradition, as in Romanesque or Gothic edifices. Furthermore, the four rivers of Paradise are denoted by four paths which radiate out from the region of the cloister towards a clear space, circular or octagonal in shape, which forms the basin of the fountain.” Ibid.,113.

572  O’Neill, op. cit., 184.

573  Delatte, Etudes sur la Litterature Pythagoricienne, 153-54.

574  Rig Veda, IX. 74.6; IX. 113.8.

575  De Saussure, Les Origines de l’Astronomie Chinoise, 159-60, 230.

576  Dejourne, Burning Water, 72.

577  Budge, op. cit., 226; W.M. Muller, Egyptian Mythology, 46, 95, 112.

578  Pyramid Text 497.

579  Gaster, op. cit., 5.

580  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 414.

581 Faulkner, The Coffin Texts. 1. Often the Egyptians represented the four streams by four vases or “four crocodiles.” (The crocodile is an Egyptian symbol of flowing water.) Renouf, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 78. The four crocodiles “live by the Words of Power”—that is, they come to life through, or as, the outward-flowing speech of the creator. On attaining the heavenly kingdom, the deceased king beseeches the crocodiles (rivers): “Let not thy fiery water be inflicted upon me.” Ibid., 79. As figures of the four life-bearing streams the crocodiles were identified with the four quarters of the Cosmos. Ibid., 97.

582  Campbell, Oriental Mythology, 78.

583  Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. II, 55.

584  W.T. Warren, op. cit., 179.

585  Renouf, op. cit., 113.

586  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 452.

587  Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 62.

588  Hildegard and Julius Lewy, “The Origin if the Week and the Oldest West Asiatic Calendar,” 5.

589 Ibid.

590  Tallquist, “Himmelsgegende und Winde,” 106.

591  Jeremias, Handbuch der Altorientalischen Geisteskultur, 252.

592  O’Neill, op. cit., 184.

593  Jeremias, op. cit., 12.

594  Ibid., 13.

595  Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, 167-69.

596 Ibid., 472. Saturn’s streams of light illuminate “the interior of the Apsu (cosmic sea).” As in Egypt, the explosive shafts  of light were interpreted as four streams of “speech” radiating to the four corners. The “four winds” and “four world directions,” according to Jeremias, correspond to the creator. Op. cit., 148.

597  Quoted in W.T. Warren, op. cit., 179-80.

598  The Thousand Syllabled Speech, Vol. I, 158.

 

599  Whitney, Atharva Veda, III.iii.

600  Eggeling, Satapatha Brahmana III, 5.3.14-16.

601  Die Heilige Stadt, 124.

602  Ibid., 145ff.

603  De Saussure, op. cit., 160, 230.

604  Jung Mandala Symbolism, 74.

605  Schlegel, L’Uranographie Chinoise, 146.

606  “Cosmogonie du Monde Dresse Debout et du Monde Renversé,” 109.

607  L’Orange, Studies in the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship, 13; see also W. Muller, op. cit., 130ff.

608  W.T. Warren, op. cit., 233.

609  W. Muller, Die Heilige Stadt, 21.

610  Alexander, op. cit., 19.

611  Burland, The Gods of Mexico, 131.

612  Nuttall, Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilization, 160-161.

613  J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya History and Religion, 257.

614  Op. cit., 223.

615  Ibid., 280.

616  Léon-Portilla, “Mythology of Ancient Mexico,” in Kramer, Mythologies of the Ancient World, 449-50.

617  Roys, The Book of the Chilam Balam, 67.

618  See, for example, J. Eric S. Thompson, op. cit., 270-71.

619  Nuttall, op. cit., 255.

620  Ibid., 198.

621  Ibid., 274.

622  Roy, op. cit., 125.

623  Ibid., 125.

624  Indianapolis, Indiana, Historical Society, Walum Olum, 11.

625  Ibid., 11.

626 Ibid.

627  Melville, Children of the Rainbow, 18.

628  Ibid., 18.

629  Ibid., 40, 126,140.

630  Campbell, op. cit., 78; Jung, Aion, 198.

631  Herodotus, I.11.2-3.

632  Quoted in Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 85.

633  Ibid., Vol. II, 65.

634  Whitney, Atharva Veda, 52.

635  Keith, Indian Mythology, 110.

636  Ibid., 52.

 

637  Ibid., 41.

638  Suhr, The Mask, the Unicorn and the Messiah, 89.

639  Ferguson, Chinese Mythology, 31.

640  Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol. II, 379.  641 Cited in Faber, The Origins of Pagan Idolatry, Vol I, 166. 642  Alexander, op. cit., 176-77.

643  Perry, Lord of the Four Quarters, 200.

644 Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 69. The reference is to Marduk, who has four eyes which “behold all things even as he (Ea).”

645  Derk Bodde, “Myths of Ancient China,” in Kramer, Mythologies, 374.

646  An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolic Philosophy, cviii.

647  Ibid., ccviii.

648  Kingship and the Gods, 153.

649 Ibid.

650  Énel, Les Origines de la Genèse et l’Enseignement des Temples de l’Ancienne Égypte, 30.

651  Cited in Jung, Alchemical Studies.

652  Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, 437.

653  Ibid., 446-47, citing Kabbala denudata I, Part 1, 16.

654  Ibid., 447n, citing Zohar I, 231a.

655  Patai, Man and Temple, 85.

656  Vilnay, Legends of Jerusalem, 17.

657  Wensinck, The Ideas of the Western Semites Concerning the Navel of the Earth, 34.

658  Isaiah 28: 16.

659  W. Muller, Die Heilige Stadt, 38ff.

660  Ibid., 94.

661  Ibid., 198.

662  Ibid., 198-99.

663  Ibid., 198-99.

664 Ibid., 145. Such traditions illuminate the image of Oedipus sitting on a stone where the ways part into many roads. O’Neill, op. cit., 393.

665 At resurrection day, the Ka’ba Stone, which is in holy Mecca, will go to the Foundation Stone in holy Jerusalem,  bringing with it the inhabitants of Mecca, and it shall become joined to the foundation Stone.” Vilnay, op. cit., 17.

666 Wensinck, Ideas of the Western Semites Concerning the Navel of the Earth,18. As is well known, the stone of the Ka’ba is black (“the black stone”). But it was not always so, for the legends claim that before Adam left Eden, it was a white hyacinth. This is, in fact, a theme which occurs elsewhere: the white stone (or god) loses his radiance, becoming “black.” Though I intend to review this theme in a subsequent volume, it is appropriate to note here that, in a widespread myth, Saturn, the primeval sun, passes into a figure of death and darkness, a prototype of Satan. Saturn becomes the “black planet.” (“Saturn is frequently called the ‘black’ or ‘dark’ planet,” observes Hildegard Lewy, Origin and Significance of the Mâgen Dâwîd, 339.)

667  Hildegard Lewy, op. cit., 360.

668  Ibid., 362.

 

669 Ibid. The myth of the four rivers flowing from the Foundation Stone and defining the four quarters of the world proves to be most tenacious. O’Neill, for example, cites the following from an old magazine, The Post Angel, which published a section called “Answers to Correspondents,” in 1971:

“Q.Why does the needle in the sea-compass always turn to the North?”

“A. The most received opinion is that there is under our North Pole a huge black rock, from under which the Ocean issueth in 4 currents answerable to the 4 corners of the Earth or 4 winds: which rock is thought to be all of a loadstone, so that by a kind of affinity it draweth all such like stones or other metals touched by them towards it.” O’Neill, op. cit., 129.

Even when the cosmic imagery has become confused with geography, the central features are the same as in the Egyptian version expressed thousands of years earlier.

670  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 497.

671  Pyramid Text 158.

672  Eggeling, op. cit., 5.3.14.

673  Book of Enoch 18: 1-3.

674  Cirlot, op. cit., 18.

675  Melville, Children of the Rainbow, 33.

676  Butterworth, The Tree at the Navel of the Earth, 53.

677  Faber, op. cit., Vol. II, 16.

678  Ibid., 15.

679  O’Neill, op. cit., 909.

680  Lenormant, op. cit., Vol. II, 19-21.

681  Uno Holmberg, Die Religiösen Vorstellungen, 86-87; Siberian Mythology, 358-59.

682  Nuttall, op. cit., 293.

683  Alexander, op. cit., 287.

684  Jung and Kerenyi, Essays on a Science of Mythology, 15.

685  De Saussure, La Série Septénaire, Cosmologique et Planétaire, 340.

686  Ibid., 333-70; Le Système Cosmologique Sino-Iranienne, 235-97; Origine Babylonienne de l’Astronomie Chinoise, 5-18.

687  De Saussure, Le Système Cosmologique Sino-Iranienne, 277.

688  “Origine Babylonienne de l’Astronomie Chinoise, 18.

689  Ibid., 16-17.

690  La Série Septénaire, 358.

691  Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, 63.

692  Gragg, The Keš Temple Hymn, 170-71.

693  Kramer, op. cit., 63.

694  Combe, Histoire du Culte de Sin, 121.

695  Gragg, op. cit., 169.

696  Sjöberg and Bergmann, The Collection of the Sumerian Temple Hymns, 13.

697  The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 632.

698  Ibid., 641.

699 The same meaning attaches to the Babylonian Esharra, the dwelling which the creator measured out on the cosmic sea. Jastrow calls Esharra “a poetic designation of the earth.” The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 431. Jensen relates the term especially to the earth as it appeared at the creation. Die Kosmologie der Babylonier. 188ff. The literal meaning is

 

“house of fullness” or “house of fertility.”

700  Op. cit., 158.

701  Ibid., 23.

702  Sjöberg and Bergmann, op. cit., Temple Hymn 39.

703  Gragg, op., cit., 174.

704  Ibid., Temple Hymn 25.

705  Ibid., Temple Hymn 18.

706  Ibid., Temple Hymn 15.

707  Ibid., Temple Hymn 21.

708  Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 190-91.

709  Melville, Children of the Rainbow, 21.

710  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 638.

711  Ibid., 404.

712  Ibid., 51.

713  Ibid., 17.

714  Lacau, Traduction des textes ses Cerueils du Moyen Empire, 45.

715  Reymond, The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian Temple, 311.

716  Ibid., 311.

717  Ibid., 311.

718  Ibid., 305.

719  “The Ideas of the Western Semites Concerning the Navel of the Earth,” 15.

720  Patai, Man and Temple, 116.

721  Ibid., 84-85.

722  The Great Mother, 159.

723  Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, 25.

724  Bleeker, Hathor and Thoth, 25.

725  Budge, Osiris: the Egyptian Religion of Resurrection, Vol.II, 272.

726  Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. I, 462.

727  Levy, Religious Conceptions of the Stone Age, 117.

728  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 260.

729  Cited in Bleeker, op. cit., 25.

730  Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 5.

731  Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods, 67.

732  The Litany of Re, 25n.

733  Sjöberg and Bergmann, op. cit., 32.

734  Langdon, Sumerian Liturgical Texts, 115.

735  Ibid., 141.

736  Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 347.

 

737  Ibid., 155.

738  Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 62.

739  Kramer, The Sacred Marriage Rite, 28.

740  Langdon, A Sumerian Grammar, 253.

741  Levy, op. cit., 100.

742 Jastrow, op. cit., 327. Of the goddess Belit-ekalla, “Belit of the palace,” Jastrow writes: “it must be confessed that the precise force of the qualification of ‘Belit of the palace’ escapes us.” Ibid., 227. To one aware of the root meaning of the god’s “house” the title can hardly pose a mystery.

The identity of “womb” and “house” occurs in every section of the globe. Simplicus reports that the Syrian goddess Derceto or Atargatis wss the habitation of the gods, just as Orphic doctrine styled Vesta the house of the gods. Faber, The Origins of Pagan Idolatry, III, 49. The Hindu Rig Veda states: “They conduct him to the hut of the consecrated; the hut of the consecrated.” Keith, Rigveda Brahmanas, 108. The same meaning of the sacred house prevails in China, according to Hentze, Das Haus als Weltort der Seele, 73.

The Mayans knew the goddess Ix Ahau Na, rendered by Roys as “Palace Lady”—an appellation exactly equivalent to the Babylonian “Belit of the Palace” and the Egyptian “Lady of the House” (Nephthys). In the Mayan language Na means both “mother” and “house.” See J. Eric S. Thompson, Maya History and Religion, 245.

With this understanding of the cosmic temple, one can better appreciate the sacred marriage rites so often conducted in sacred chambers. The king or high priest signified the god, while the queen or priestess represented the goddess and thus the temple itself, the cosmic receptacle housing the seed of abundance. Symbolically the temple was the spouse of the king, and the kings union with the temple maiden reenacted the primal marriage.

“ . . . It is from the temple,” states Patai, “that the blessings of fertility issued forth the whole world . . . The temples of many an ancient people were regarded as the Nuptial Chamber in which the divine powers of fertility, the Father God and Mother Goddess, celebrated their great annual wedding feast for the purpose of ensuring the fruitfulness of the earth and the multiplication of man and beast.” Patai, op. cit., 88.

743  Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, 103.

744  Quoted in Brown, Researches into the Origins of the Primitive Constellation, Vol. I, 32.

745  Drower, The Coronation of the Great Šišlam, 13.

746  Muller, Egyptian Mythology, 129.

747  Langdon, Sumerian Grammar, 21.

748  The Origins of European Thought, 445, 450-460.

749  Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 344.

750  Piankoff, The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 117.

751  Piankoff, The Wandering of the Soul, 22.

752  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 253.

753  Quoted in Frankfort, op. cit., 108.

754  Lacau, op. cit., 22.

755  Budge, Egyptian Book of the Dead, 248.

756  Clark, op. cit., 177.

757  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 345.

758  Pyramid Text 910.

759  Pyramid Text 729, quoted in Frankfort, op. cit., 174.

760  Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 213.

761  Hassan, Hymnes Religieux du Moyen Empire, 46.

 

762  Frankfort, op. cit., 107, 174; Clark, op. cit., 219.

763  Op. cit., 107.

764  Op. cit., 176.

765  Sjöberg and Bergmann, op. cit., 21.

766  Ibid., 45.

767  Gragg, op. cit., 169.

768  Hentze, op. cit., 96.

769  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 93.

770  Sayce, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, 81.

771  Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 19-23.

772  The Spinning Aphrodite, 146.

773  Op. cit., 127.

774  The Evolution of the Dragon, 181.

775  Neumann, op. cit., 128.

776  Albright, The Mouth of the Rivers, 173.

777  Op. cit.

778  Nuttall, Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilization, 105.

779  Neumann, op. cit., 124.

780  Pyramid Text 437.

781 Agrawala, Sparks from the Vedic Fire, 21. 782 Darmesteter, The Zend Avesta, Part II, 225. 783  O’Niell, The Night of the Gods, 923.

784  Jung, Mysterium Coniunctinis, 348.

785  Nuttall, op. cit., 100.

786  Ibid., 284.

787  Ibid., 96.

788  Op. cit., 132.

789  M. S. Holmberg, The God Ptah, 46.

790  Ibid., 46.

791 Pyramid Texts 1184-85. In Numerous ancient rites reviewed by Hentze—from China to Mexico to Italy—the deceased, or their ashes, were placed in vases which possessed the shape of a house; and these “house-urns,” in each cult, symbolized the “Earth-Mother.” Artists in China and Peru depicted the house-urn containing an unborn child. The vase sheltered the deceeased as the womb, giving birth (that is, rebirth) to him in the land of beginnings. Neumann describes similar symbolism of the house-urn in the Aegean cults of the Bronze Age, where the dead man lies in the vessel “as a child in the attitude of an embryo.” The practice of enclosing the dead within house-like vases symbolizing the mother-womb does not explain itself. The union of womb, house, and vessel hearkens back to the primordial order and the original dwelling of the great father. See Hentze, op. cit.:Neumann, op. cit., 163.

792  Op. cit., 227.

793  Ibid., 218.

794  Rudolf Anthes, Mythology in Ancient Egypt, in Kramer, Mythologies of the Ancient World, 87-90.

795  Lacau, op. cit., 177.

 

796  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 178.

797  Ibid., 638.

798  Lacau, op. cit., 65.

799  Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 103.

800  Budge, Papyrus of Ani, 219.

801  Renouf, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 164.

802  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 344.

803  Budge, Papyrus of Ani, 219.

804  Vandier, “Iousâas et (Hathor)-Nébet-Hétépet,” 31, 83.

805  Budge, Egyptian Book of the Dead, 415.

806  Pyramid Text 195.

807  Pyramid Text 320.

808  Renouf, op. cit., 97.

809  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 354, 422, 430, 443, 447, 517; Vol. II, 213, 279.

810  Op. cit., 227.

811  Budge, The Litany of Funerary Offerings, 135.

812  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead 178.

813 Clark, op. cit., 150. That the Eye, though female, belongs to the great father (as the “Eye of Horus,” “Eye of Ra,” or “Eye of  Nu”)  agrees  fundamentally  with the character  of  the enclosed  sun   already examined. The sun and its enclosure constitute the primordial Androgyne or “Father-Mother.” A common idea underlies the mythical recollections of “birth” from the great gods navel, thigh, or eye; the imagery focuses on the simple and universal form of the primal parents .

814  Frankfort, op. cit., 152.

815  Sjöberg and Bergmann, op. cit., 41.

816  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 186.

817  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 209.

818  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 166.

819  Frankfort, op. cit., 127.

820  Pyramid Text 635.

821  Pyramid Texts 844-45

822  Pyramid Text 1234.

823  Pyramid Text 2274.

824  Pyramid Text 1816.

825  Gods, Vol. II, 113-14.

826  Budge, Papyrus of Ani, 96.

827  Clark, op. cit., 95.

828  O’Neill, op. cit., 464.

829  MacCulloch, Celtic Mythology, 50.

830  O’Neill, op. cit., 464.

 

831  Ibid., 464.

832  Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol. I, 186.

833  O’Neill, op. cit., 464.

834  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 56.

835  O’Neill, op. cit., 464.

836  MacCulloch, op., 169.

837 As an example of contemporary analyses I note the explanation of the Cyclopes offered by Robert Graves: “The Cyclopes seem to have been a guild of Early Helladic bronzesmiths. Cyclops means ‘ring-eyed,’ and they are likely to have been tatoed with concentric rings on the forehead, in honour of the sun . . . Concentric circles are part of the mystery of smith-craft: in order to beat out bowls, helmets, or ritual masks, the smith would guide himself with such circles, described by compass around the centre of the flat disk on which he was working. The Cyclopes were one-eyed also in the sense that smiths often shade one eye with a patch against flying sparks.” Graves, The Greek Myths, 32. In one paragraph Graves offers three different—and equally unsatisfactory—explanations of the “ring-eyed” god.

838  Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, Vol. I, 703.

839  A Dictionary of Symbols, 48.

840  Faber, op. cit., Vol. I, 194.

841  Nuttall, op. cit., 26.

842  Ibid., 26.

843  Clark, op. cit., 50.

844  Ibid., 51.

845  Ibid., 51.

846  Pyramid Text 2289.

847  Quoted in Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 443.

848  Frankfort, op. cit., 180.

849  Albright, “The Goddess of Life and Wisdom,” 273.

850 Handbuch der Altorientalischen Geisteskultur, 21; R. C. Thompson, The reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and Babylon, Vol. II, 249.

851 Collum, “Die Schöpferische Mutter Göttin,” 249, 274; Neumann, op. cit., 18, 153; Faber, op. cit., vol. II, 456; Burland, The Gods of Mexico, 133.

852  Sayce, op. cit., 116.

853  Quoted in Onians, op. cit., 250.

854  Ibid., 332.

855  Quoted in Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 266.

856  Ibid., 332.

857  Horapollo 1.c.2.

858  R. C. Thompson, Reports, 249.

859  Wensinck, “Ideas of the Western Semites,” 61ff.

860  Brown, Researches, Vol. II, 105.

861  Clark, op. cit., 50.

862  Sayce, op. cit., 281.

863  Wensinck, “The Ocean in the Literature of the Western Semites,” 25.

 

864  Graves and Patai, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis, 51-52

865  MacCulloch, Eddic Mythology, 328.

866  Onians, op. cit., 249-51

867  Alexander, Latin American Mythology, 57.

868  Wensinck, “Ideas of the Western Semites,” 62.

869  Ibid., 63.

870  Ibid., 63.

871  Cook, op. cit., Vol. I, 221, 229.

872  J. Eric S. Thompsom, op. cit., 268.

873  Emerson, Indian Myths, 347.

874  I intend to take up such imagery in greater detail in the second volume of this work.

875 Langdon, Sumerian Liturgies and Psalms, 316. 876 Wensinck, “Ideas of the Western Semites,” 65. 877  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 377. 878  O’Neill, op. cit., 735.

879  J. Eric S. Thompson, op. cit., 212-14.

880  Nuttall, op. cit., 522.

881  Wensinck, “Ideas of the Western Semites,” 64.

882  Clark, op. cit., 53.

883  Pyramid Texts 195-98.

884  Pyramid Text 900.

885  Op. cit., 93.

886  Sjöberg and Bergmann, op. cit., 29.

887  Pyramid Text 585.

888  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 481.

889  Ibid., 400.

890  The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 248 note 7.

891  Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods, 154.

892  Reymond, The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian Temple, 48-49.

893  Pyramid Text 1022.

894  Op. cit., 51-52.

895 Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, 46. 896 Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. I, 309. 897  Ibid., Vol. II, 159.

898  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 606,624, 627.

899  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 309.

900  Clark, op. cit., 86.

901  Ibid., 83.

 

902  Faulkner, The Coffin Texts, 226.

903  Ibid., 230-31.

904  Pyramid Text 1559.

905  Clark, op. cit., 41.

906  Ibid., 178.

907  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 388-89.

908  Ibid,. 251.

909  Frankfort, op. cit., 153.

910  Clark, op. cit.,59.

911  Ibid., 41.

912  Budge, From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt, 243; see Pyramid Text 794c.

913  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 582.

914  Op. cit., 236.

915  Ibid., 237.

916  Énel, Les Origines de la Gènese et l’Enseignement des Temples de l’Ancienne Égypte, 117.

917  Schafer, “Altägyptische Bilder der Auf-und Untergehenden Sonne,” 19, note 7.

918  Budge, Egyptian Book of the Dead, 388-89.

919  Faulkner, op. cit., 176.

920  Ibid., 148.

921  Moret, “Le Lotus et la Naissance des Dieux in Égypte,” 501.

922  Massey, Ancient Egypt, 363.

923 Compare Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 104. 924  Compare Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 320. 925 Compare Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 11. 926  Compare ibid., 481.

927  Compare ibid., 393.

928  Compare ibid., 400.

929  Compare ibid., 446.

930  Compare ibid., 71.

931  Quoted in Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, 29.

932  Budge, Gods, Vol.I, 354.

933  Frankfort, op. cit., fig. 39.

934  Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 7.

935  Op. cit., 376.

936  Clark, op. cit., 134.

937  Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 117.

938  Piankoff, The Wandering of the Soul, 103.

939  Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 17.

 

940  Op. cit., 150.

941  Ibid., 154.

942  Ibid., 152.

943  Agrawala, Sparks from the Vedic Fire, 82-83.

944  Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, 81.

945  Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 99; Sayce, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, 360.

946  Langdon, op. cit., 119.

947  Op. cit., 360.

948  Ibid., 515.

949  Kramer, op. cit., 98.

950  Langdon, op. cit., 209.

951  Toward the Image of Tammuz, 118.

952  Sayce, op. cit., 449.

953  Langdon, op. cit., 209.

954  Op. cit., 361.

955  Chaldean Magic, 152.

956  Ibid.; see also Lenormant, Les Origines de l’Histoire, Vol. I, 126-127.

957  The Tree at the Navel of the Earth, 124.

958  “The Gates of Sunrise in ancient Babylonian Art,” 242.

959  Researches into the Origins of the Primitive Constellations, Vol. I, 184.

960  Ibid,. 185.

961  Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, 11.

962  Langdon, “A Hymn to Eridu,” 64.

963  Sjöberg and Bergmann, The Collection of the Sumerian Temple Hymns, 51.

964  W. T. Warren, Paradise Found, 166-69.

965  The Natural Genesis, Vol. II, 21.

966  Les Origines, Vol. II, 17.

967  Ibid.; Faber, The Origins of Pagan Idolatry, Vol. III, 201.

968  Wilson, Vishnu Purana, Vol.II, 110ff.; Guenon, Le Roi du Monde, 85; O’Neill, The Night of the Gods, 400.

969  Lenormant, Les Origines de l’Histoire, Vol. II, 19.

970 Ibid.

971 Ibid.

972  Eggeling, Satapatha Brahmana, III, 7,1, 14.

973  Ibid., III, 6, 1, 15; Eliade, Le Chamanisme el les Techniques Archaïques de l’Extase, 362-63.

974  Satapatha Brahmana, I, 2, 1, 10.

975  Ibid., Part IIn 140-43, 454, note 3.

976  Eliade, op. cit., 363.

977  Elements of Buddhist Iconography, Figs. 1-5.

 

978  Ibid., note to Fig. 2.

979  De Saussure, Les Origines de l’Astronomie Chinoise, 231,249.

980  Rig Veda X, 89, 4, in Coomaraswamy, op. cit., 29.

981  Ibid., 28-29.

982  Ibid., 34.

983  O’Neill, op. cit., 400.

984  Ibid., 400.

985  W. T. Warren, op. cit., 146-47.

986  Ibid., 143-44.

987  Ibid., 128.

988  Massey, Ancient Egypt, 349.

989  Warren, op. cit., 129.

990  Ibid., 147.

991  O’Neill, op. cit., 521.

992  Nuttall, Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilization, 288.

993 O’Neill, op. cit., 226. O’Neill Summarizes the Ki as follows: “Placed in the middle, it is (like the pivot, like the king, like the Pole star) the center and the Terminus; or like the upper poimt of the post of a house, which is the center, and supports  all . . . The Ki, the supreme Pole, is the centre of the heavens and of the Earth. Ibid., 520. Again, the “center” coincides with the “summit.”

994  Darmesteter, The Zend Avesta, Part II, 175.

995  Ibid., Part I, 225, including note I.

996  West, Bundahish XX.

997  Darmesteter, op. cit., Part II, 131-32.

998  Ararat and Eden, 41.

999  Dresden, “Mythology of Ancient Iran,” 359.

1000  Les Origines, Vol. I, 30ff.

1001  Darmesteter, op. cit., Part II, 101.

1002  Wesr, op. cit., xii, 6.

1003  Warren, op. cit., 243.

1004  Darmesteter, op. cit., Part II 175.

1005  Ibid., 33, note 1.

1006  Warren, op. cit., 156-57.

1007  Uno Holmberg, Die Religiösen Vorstellungen der Altaischen Völker, 80.

1008  Siberian Mythology, 333.

1009  Ibid.,341.

1010  Ibid., 342.

1011  Uno Holmberg, Die Religiösen Vorstellungen, 59.

1012 Uno Holmberg, Siberian Mythology, 337. Though the cosmic pillar is explicitly polar, the Siberians (like so many other races) connect it with the primeval “sun.” The Ostiaks describe the celestial binding post as standing “on the side of the sun.” Certain tribes deem the celestial pole the “Pillar of Gold,” “the Pillar of Fire,” or “the Pillar of the Sun.” Eliade, op. cit., 236.

 

Some traditions describe the binding post as made of iron. The Voguls recall “the holy iron pillar of god erected for the tethering of the holy animal with many-coloured thighs,” while others often depict it as a shining “nail” serving as the axis and support of the cosmos. The Samoyeds, for example, speak of a polar “nail of the sky,” “round which the heavens revolve.” Uno Holmberg, Siberian Mythology, 221. Among the Finns and Lapps the conception of the world pillar as a golden nail was very common. Holzmayer describes the belief as follows: “In the middle of the sky, or in the north, the heavens are affixed to a nail in such a manner that they are able to revolve round the nail, the revolving causing the movement of the stars.” This nail is at the same time conceived as the support or foundation of the sky. Ibid.

The Altaic “Nail of the North” was the axis of the world mill. The Ostiaks sang: “There is a mill which grinds by itself, and scatters the jdust of a hundred versts away. And there is a golden pole with a golden cage on top which is also the Nail of  the North.” De Santillana and von Dechend, Hamlets Mill, 96. We can now understand this mill as the ever-turning cosmic wheel supported by the “golden pole” or axis-pillar .

1013 In one Such wooden post described by Leem an iron nail was stuck in the jtop as an obvious symbol of the world nail. Uno Holmberg, Siberian Mythology, 221-22.

1014  Uno Holmberg, Die Religiosen Vorstellungen, 47-48.

1015  Ibid., 62.

1016  Ibid., 75-88.

1017  Lenormant, Les Origines,Vol. I, 146.

1018  Dionysius Halicarnass, I, 34; II, 1.

1019  Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol. I, 101, 114-15.

1020  Plato, Critias, 120; Lenormant, Les Origines de l’Histoire, Vol. I, 146.

1021  Cook, op. cit., Vol. I, 116.

1022  Quoted in Warren, op. cit., 182.

1023  Ibid., 212.

1024  Revelation 21:10.

1025  Wensinck, “The Ideas of the Western Semites Concerning the Navel of the Earth,” 1-10.

1026  Ibid., 16.

1027  Ibid., 13.

1028  Psalm 48: 1-2.

1029  Gaster, Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament, 758.

1030  Psalm 48:2, as translated by Gaster, op. cit., 758.

1031  Isaiah 14:13-14.

1032  Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain, 162.

1033  Psalm 50: 2-3.

1034  To Come.

1035  Psalm 48:1.

1036  Psalm 76:2.

1037  Ezekiel 12: 13-15.

1038  See also the Book of Jubilees 8:19.

1039  Op. cit., 14.

1040  Clifford, op. cit., 131.

1041  Ibid., 97.

 

1042  Ibid., 68.

1043  Ibid., 77.

1044 Ibid. Complementing Hebrew traditions of Zion are the Muslim tales of the world mountain Kaf. According to the commentary of Tha’labi, “Allah created a large mountain of green emerald, from which the green colour of the sky is derived: it is called mount Kaf and it surrounds the whole earth.” Wensinck, op. cit., 5. The mount served as a stable support and enclosed the “world,” This is exactly the image of the enclosed celestial earth forming the summit of the primeval hill

Muslim cosmology knows the holy city of Mecca as the summit of the worlds highest mountain. Ibid., 12, 25. The throne of Allah on the mountaintop or world summit stood at the celestial pole. “The highest point and the center of heaven is the Polestar,” states Wensinck. Ibid., 47.

Western Semitic races claim that the creator dwelt in a celestial tent, reflected in imitative tents on earth. The central pole of the terrestrial tent corresponds to the world mountain. The Arabs called the cosmic mountain itself the “Central Pole of the Tent,” while the Arabic name for the pole star, Al-rucaba, gave the Spanish arrocabe, “the kingpost of a roof.” O’Neill, op. cit., Vol. I, 226.

The polar mount also finds symbolic expression in the Arabic minaret or “light house,” a slender and lofty tower atached to a Muslim mosque. On the balcony of the minaret the muezzin calls the people to prayer. The worlds largest minaret is the Qutb Minar at Delhi, standing over 240 feet high and described by one observer as resembling “a cyclopean red telescope.” Ibid., 206-8. The Quth (of Qutb Minar) is, as we have seen, the “pole” or “axis” of the universe. The minaret— commemorating the axis-pillar—thus corresponds well with the sacred poles and pillars of other nations. (I earlier proposed that the prototype of the minaret was the Egyptian Mena-uret—the Great Mooring Post.)

1045  Op. cit., 247.

1046  Masey, Ancient Egypt, 588.

1047  Krickerberg, in Pre-Columbian Religions, 41; Fay Diego Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites, 161, translators footnote.

1048  Sejourne, Burning Water, 89.

1049  Léon-Portilla, Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico, 56-57.

1050  Alexander, North American Mythology, 178.

1051  Ibid., 107.

1052  Ibid., 8.

1053  Latin American Mythology, 277.

1054  Alexander, North American Mythology, 8.

1055  In Pre-Columbian Religions, 163.

1056 Ibid., 166. The Mexican national temple of Tlaloc and Vizilputzi (Tlaloc’s brother) stood in the center of the city of Mexico, whence four causeways radiated in the four direction. “In the center of the temple stood a richly ornamented Pillar of peculiar sanctity,” noted Warren, op. cit., 247 note 1. Since the intersection of the crossroads symbolized the cosmic center and summit, the pillar clearly represented Tlaloc’s celestial mountain at the navel of the world.

The center and capital of the Peruvian city of Cuzco stood at the intersection of four great highways running to the north, south, east, and west, each traversing one of the four provinces or vice-royalties into which Peru was divided. In the central temple was a circle and in the center of the circle stood a sacred pillar, Ibid., note 2.

1057  Op. cit., Vol. I, 55-56.

1058  Kramer, The Sacred Marriage Rite, 54.

1059  Frankfort, op. cit., 257.

1060  Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, 81.

1061  Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 399.

1062  Clifford, op. cit., 30.

 

1063 “Der Ithyphallus, der auf der elamischen Vase realistisch dargestellt ist, entspricht in der mythischen Symbolik der Weltberg.” Jeremias, Handbuch der Altorientalischen Geisteskultur, 24.

1064  Renouf, op. cit., 115, note 1.

1065  Ibid., 54.

1066  Quoted in O’Neill, op. cit., 201.

1067  Faber, op. cit., Vol. I, 331.

1068  Coomaraswamy, op. cit., 54-5; 66, note 15; 88, note 132.

1069  Whitney, Atharva Veda, 680.

1070  Philippi, The Kojiki, 50.

1071  Ibid., 398-99, citing Hirata, Pure Shinto, 67.

1072  Faber, op. cit., Vol. III, 203.

1073  Ibid., 30ff., 201ff.

1074 The cosmic mountain was the masculine source of universal generation, a fact reflected in the pronounced phallic atributes of the mountain-god. Enlil, the Mesopotamian “great mountain,” raises aloft the goddess Ninhursag, the “queen”  of the cosmic hill, and implants the male “seed” (Saturn) within the celestial womb.

The Babylonian Bel (Canaanite Baal) receives the title “lord, the mightly mountain Bel.” Allegro informs us that the god “derives his name from a Sumerian verb Al, ‘bore,’ which combined with a preformative element BA, gave words for ‘drill’ and ‘penis’ and gave Latin and us our word ‘phallus.’ The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, 24. Bel, the “mighty mountain,” was the generative pillar of the heavens. The phallic mountain was also the bore because it was the turning axle.

The Egyptian Shu, personifying the Light Mountain, is “lord of the Phallus” and appears in one text (Pyramid Text 642) to be equated with the male organ of Atum. More generally the pillar-god represents the phallus of Geb, brother and husband of Nut. Egyptian art depicts Shu standing on the recumbent Geb and supporting the curved and star-stubbed body of Nut with outstretched arms. Elsewhere, however, the artists replace Shu by the phallus of Geb. These illustrations, coming from the late period of Egyptian history, yet preserve a vital idea, whose origins will be found in the simple configuration  .     The identity of Shu, the heaven’s pillar, with the phallus of Geb, illuminates these lines from the Coffin Texts: “As Geb I shall impregnate you [Nut] in your name of sky. I shall join the whole earth to you in every place. O high above the earth! You are supported upon your father Shu.” Quoted in Clark, op. cit., 49.

1075  Evelyn-White, Hesiod the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, 117.

1076  Pindar, Pythian Odes iv, 289.

1077  Ovid, Metamorphoses, 168 1078 Frazer, Apollodorus, II. V. II. 1079  Ibid., 221 note 2.

1080  Hyginus, Poetic Astronomy ii. 3.

1081  Graves, The Greek Myths, 144.

1082  Oldenberg, Vedic Hymns, 49.

1083  Ibid., 61.

1084  Op. cit., 65.

1085  Ibid., 10.

1086  Rig Veda V, 3, 160.

1087  Whitney, op. cit., 347.

1088  Eggeling, op. cit., III, 5, 3, 14.

1089  Campbell, Oriental Mythology, 208.

 

1090 Nikhilananda, The Upanishands, 18. We also saw that the Hindu skambha, or universe post, acquired the form of a cosmic giant sustaining the heavens. See here.

1091  Coomaraswamy, op. cit., 10; 68, note 30; see plates I and II; see also O’Neill, op. cit., 194.

1092  Eliade, op. cit., 239.

1093  Uno Holmberg, Siberian Mythology, 234-35.

1094  Lenrot, The Kalevala, 5.

1095  Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, 116.

1096  De Santillana and von Dechend, op. cit., 158-59.

1097 Emerson, Indian Myths, 338-39, 438. Atlas was the cosmic mountain personified. Thus both Euripides and Aristotle relate the pillar of Atlas to the world axis. Warren comments: “The upright axis of the world is often poetically conceived of as a majestic pillar, supporting he heavens and furnishing the pivot on which they revolve.” Op. cit., 122.

1098  Amos 5:26.

1099  Ancient Egypt, 670.

1100  Goetz and Morley, Popul Vuh, 81-84.

1101  Ibid., 82, note 7.

1102  Léon-Portilla, op. cit., 65.

1103  Harris, Boanerges, 33.

1104  Coomaraswamy and Mivedita, Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists, 388.

1105  Rhys, Arthurian Legend, 594.

1106  MacCulloch, Celtic Mythology, 190.

1107  Werner, African Mythology, 138.

1108  Op. cit., 214.

1109  Ibid., 216.

1110  Bodde, “Myths of Ancient China,” in Kramer, Mythologies of the Ancient World, 374-76.

1111  Budge, The Papyrus of Ani, 118.

1112  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 370.

1113  Ancient Egypt, 311.

1114  Cited in Neumann, The Great Mother, 224.

1115  Suryakanta, The Flood Legend in Sanskit Literature, 4.

1116  Keith, Indian Mythology, 113.

1117  Nikhilanda, op. cit., 221ff.

1118  Schwabe, Archetype und Tierkreis, 34.

1119 Agrawals, op. cit., 41, 70. Yet strangely, while observing the connection of the one foot and motionlessness, Agrawala never mentions the celestial pole—and even more strangely, he identifies Aja Ekapad as the solar orb (page 42).

1120  Coomaraswamy and Nivedita, op. cit., 388-89.

1121  Ibid., 378.

1122 O’Neill, op. cit., 501. The identity of the single leg as the world pillar finds additional confirmation in the symbolism of sacred structures, mythical and historical. In the Japanese Kojiki the mythical emperor Jimmu encounters a palace which appears to rest on a central post. Chamberlain renders the description as “a palace which could be entered with one stride.” But the most literal translation, according to Chamberlain, would be “a one-foot-rising palace.” As is so often the case the literal rendering is superior to that chosen by the translators. That the palace rises on a single foot or leg is confirmed by the Nihongi reference to the same palace: here, instead of ashi, “foot,” we have hashira, “pillar.” The native commentators seem

 

to agree that the single pillar supported the whole weight of the palace, observes O’Neill, op. cit., 224.

1123  Frazer, The Golden Bough, Vol. I, 230.

1124  Cook, op. cit., Vol. I, 422.

1125 O’Neill, op. cit., 230. This leads us to the suggestion that the fabulous polar mountain of Meru must in some sense have been the leg or thigh of the great god. There is a well-known classical tradition that Zeus gave birth to Dionysus from his “thigh” (which reminds us of the Egyptian god-king issuing from the cosmic “leg”). The Greek “thigh” is meros, and the Greek Mount Meros wea [sic] the Hindu Meru, the starting point of creation and mythical birthplace of gods and man. Birth from the leg or thigh is equivalent to cosmic birth atop the mountain of the world. (We must remember that the feminine “thigh” or womb composed the summit of the mount or leg and thus an inseparable part of the androgynous Heaven Man.)

1126  Coomaraswamy and Nivedita, op. cit., 388.

1127 Perceiving the influence of astral symbolism, O’Neill recognized the leg-pillar as the polar axis. “In Mailduins Voyage he came to an island called Aenchoss, that is One-foot, so called because  it  was supported  by a single  pillar  in the  middle . . . ,” reports O’Neill. A curious form of the palace on one foot occurs in a Russian tale, relating how four heroes who are wandering about the world come to a dense forest in which an izba or hut twirls round on a fowl’s leg. “The youngest, prince Ivan (our Jack) makes it revolve with the magic word Izbushka. This supplies the idea of cosmic rotation which is absent in the Japanese myth.” O’Neill, op. cit., 225 The mythical dwelling raised on a single leg echoes a cosmic tradition. No one has even seen, on our earth, an island supported by a pillar or leg—or a house revolving on a leg. The leg was the central pillar seeming to sustain the primeval suns cosmic dwelling.

1128  Dixon, Oceanic Mythology, 159-60.

1129  Ibid., 161.

1130  Coomaraswamy, “The Symbolism, of the Dome,” 19.

1131  Uno Holmberg, Siberian Mythology, 310.

1132  Nuttall, op. cit., 262-63.

1133  Krickerberg, in Pre-Columbian American Religions, 47.

1134  Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 249.

1135  Ancient Egypt, 304.

1136  Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, 76.

1137  Before Olympos, 81.

1138  Ibid., 87.

1139  Ibid., 85.

1140 Ibid., 84. Sacred pillars claimed to have been fashioned by the companions of Quetzalcoatl also received the form of serpents, as did sacred pillars in Ireland. O’Neill, op. cit., 378.

1141  Op. cit., Vol. II, 89.

1142  D’Alviella, The Migration of Symbols, 29.

1143  Pyramid Text 2128.

1144  Cook, op. cit., Vol. I, 359.

1145  Hans Henning Van Der Osten, Ancient Oriental Seals in the Collection of Mr. Edward T. Newell, 113.

1146  Patterns in Comparative Religion, 165-66.

1147  Op. cit., 27.

1148  Cook, op. cit., Vol. II, 494; Guthrie, The Greeks and Their Gods, 78.

1149  Gods, Vol. II, 87.

1150  Ibid., 91.

1151  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 625.

 

1152  Ibid., 503.

1153  Ibid., 65.

1154  Ibid., 391.

1155  Ibid., 373.

1156  Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 90.

1157  Hassan, Hymnes Religieux du Moyen Empire.

1158  Pyramid Texts 277, 1551.

1159  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 401.

1160  Ibid., 625.

1161  Piankoff, The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 115.

1162  Pyramid Text 1158.

1163  Kramer, Sacred Marriage Rite, 32.

1164  From the Tablets of Sumer, 72.

1165  Coomaraswamy, A New Approach to the Vedas, 96, note 92b.

1166  Coomaraswamy, “Symbolism of the Dome,” 35, citing Rig Veda IV, 6, 2-3.

1167  Ibid., 53.

1168  Wensinck, The Ocean in the Literature of the Western Semites, 18.

1169  Cook, op. cit., Vol. I, 759, note 6.

1170  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 327.

1171  Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 88.

1172  Pyramid Text 1871.

1173  Budge, Gods, Vol. II, 90.

1174  Ibid., 90.

1175  Renouf, op. cit., 165.

1176  Albright, “The Mouth of the Rivers,” 178.

1177  Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, 46.

1178 Symbols, 8. Though many writers on comparative mythology note the common belief in a celestial river—the mythical source of all terrestrial waters—no one seems to have perceived the root identity of this famous stream with the Primeval Hill. Darmesteter, however, comes close when he writes (of the Iranian celestial river): “Waters and light are believed to flow from the same spring and in the same bed: ‘As light rises up from Hara Berezaiti [the polar mountain] so waters spring up from it and come back to it.’” Darmesteter, op. cit., Part I, 225.

Similarly, Clifford reports that Ugaritic texts and seals depict the Canaanite cosmic mountain as “the paradisiacal source of water that gives fertility.” The Mount, he states, “joins the upper and lower worlds; in it is contained a super abundance of life, of water; it is the throne of the deity.” Op. cit., 97.

Thus can the Japanese Kojiki announce: “That down river which is like a mountain of green leaves, looks like a mountain but it is not a mountain” (Philippi, op. cit., 222), and the northwestern American Indians can speak of the river leading to the end (summit) of the world as a vast “pole” ascended by the souls of the dead. Alexander, North American Mythology, 248- 49.

1179  Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, 45.

1180  O’Neill, op. cit., 866.

1181  Schlegel, L’Uranographie Chinoise, 208.

1182  Clifford, op. cit., 78.

 

1183  Op. cit., 6-7.

1184  Psalm 36: 7-8.

1185  Gaster, op. cit., 27.

1186  Ibid., 7.

1187  Op. cit., 68.

1188  De Santillana and von Dechend, op. cit., 208-9; MacCulloch, Eddic Mythology, 333.

1189  Gaster, op. cit.; Rig Veda ix 74, 6; ix, 113, 8.

1190 The Biblical Fountain of Life, states Gaster, “has abundant parallels in folklore. In the Koran, for example, we read of  the wondrous paradisiacal fountains, Salsabil and Kauthar (‘Abundance’); while the North American Indians knew . . . of a Fountain of Youth and Vigor on the paradisal island of Bimini (or Boiuca). A hula chant from Hawaii likewise makes mention of such a fountain; while in Celtic belief it was held that in the midst of the island of Avalon flowed a rill from which a sprang a fountain the waters of which gave life to the spirits of the departed. An old French poem speaks in a similar vein of a fountain of perpetual youth in the land of Cocagne; all who bathe in it are at once rejuvenated. In Pseudo- Callisthenes’ version of the Alexander legend, the hero goes in search of the Fountain of Immortality; and it need scarcely  be added that the Fountain of Youth, Beauty, or immortality is a very common feature of European folktales.” Op. cit., 27.28.

1191 The central spring or fount comes alive each night, appearing as a river of fire. This was the nature of Ammon’s legendary “Fountain of the Sun” and of the spring of Zeus at Dodona. At midday, Pliny reports, the spring of Zeus fails altogether, “but it soon increases till it is full at midnight, from which time onwards it again gradually fails.” Ammon’s pool (the “Fountain of the Sun”), “cold by day, is hot by night.”

The tradition is noted by Cook, who cites the reports of Herodotus, Lucretius, Ovid, Diodorus, and others to the effect that the Fountain of the Sun grows colder each morning until midday, but that as the day declines the fount grows warmer “becoming tepid at sundown and fairly bubbing with heat at midnight.” It may seem strange that such a spring, increasing with the setting of the solar orb, was the “Fountain of the Sun.” Among the chroniclers of the fount the current explanation was that by night the sun went below the earth and there boiled the water. Cook, op. cit., Vol. I, 868.

In truth, the cosmic fountain rose to the central sun at the pole, becoming a fiery stream each night (“day,” in the earliest ritual). Pliny says that the spring of Zeus at Dodona kindles torches—obviously no characteristic of a terrestrial spring. The mythical imagery pertains to the archetypal fountain of the sun, the fiery, ethereal stream of Shu, to which the Egyptians gave pictorial expression in the hieroglyph .

1192  Kerenyi, Prometheus, 51.

1193  Combe, Histoire du Culte de Sin, 11-12.

1194  Die Kosmologie der Babylonier, 191.

1195  Rawlinson, Herodotus, Essay X.

1196  Handbuch der Altorientalischen Geisteskultur, 96.

1197  Combe, op. cit., 146.

1198  Ibid., 114.

1199  Jastrow, “Sun and Saturn,” 143.

1200  The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. II, 36.

1201  Ibid., 37.

1202  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 228.

1203  The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 263-64.

1204  Faulkner, The Coffin Texts, 131.

1205  The Tree at the Navel of the Earth, 109.

1206  The Mothers, Vol. III, 82.

 

1207  Op. cit., 127.

1208  The Evolution of the Dragon, 56.

1209  Ibid., 56.

1210  Suhr, The Spinning Aphrodite, 57.

1211  Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, 177.

1212  Ibid., 129.

1213  The Origins of Pagan Idolatry, Vol. II, 3.

1214  Ibid., 5.

1215  Ibid., 6.

1216  Op. cit., Vol. III, 61.

1217  Ibid., 61.

1218  Ibid., 61

1219  Faber, op. cit., Vol. III, 13.

1220  Ibid., 18.

1221  Faulkner, op. cit., 224.

1222  “The Ideas of the Western Semites Concerning the Navel of the Earth,” 13.

1223  Jeremias, op. cit., 57.

1224  Wensinck, “Tree and Bird Cosmological Symbols in Western Asia,” 19, citing Nonnus, Dionysiaca, XI, 407 sqq.

1225  Butterworth, op. cit., 55.

1226  Der Baum des Lebens, 62.

1227  Lenormant, Les Origines de l’Histoire, Vol. II, 204-5.

1228  The Earth, The Temple and the Gods, 11.

1229  Ibid., 22, 203.

1230  Op. cit., Vol. III, 202.

1231  Ibid., 203-4.

1232  Ibid., 204.

1233  Ibid., 204.

1234  Percy E. Newberry, “Two Cults of the Old Kingdom,” 24ff.

1235  Faber, op. cit., Vol. III, 204.

1236  Quoted in Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Vol. I, 114.

1237  Op. cit., vol. III, 204-5.

1238  Hans Henning van Der Western, Ancient Oriental Seals in the Collection of Mr. Edward T. Newell, fig. 6, no. 217.

1239  Pindar, Nemian Odes, 10.148ff.

1240  Op. cit., Vol. II, 440.

1241  Ibid., Vol. II, 432-33.

1242  Ibid., Vol. II, 433.

1243  Ibid., Vol. II, 434.

1244  Ibid., Vol. II, 435.

 

1245  Ibid., Vol. I, 771.

1246  Ibid., Vol. II, 378.

1247  Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt.

1248  Cook, op. cit., Vol. II, 435.

1249  Neumann, The Great Mother, 205.

1250  Sparks from the Vedic Fire, 42-43, 62ff.

1251 Patterns in Comparative Religion, 52. 1252 O’Neill, The Night of the Gods, 836. 1253 Graves, The Greek Myths, 243, note 2. 1254  Cook, op. cit., Vol. II, 442-43.

1255  Quoted in Cook, op. cit., Vol II, 376.

1256  Ibid., 335.

1257  Op. cit., Vol. II, 381.

1258  Alexander, North American Mythology, 235.

1259  Massey, Ancient Egypt, 375.

1260  Pyramid Text. 1089.

1261  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 6.

1262  Lacau, Traduction des Textes des Cercueils du Moyen Empire,52.

1263  Ibid., 37.

1264  Pyramid Texts 1690-91.

1265  Pyramid Text 1375.

1266  Pyramid Text 289.

1267  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 261.

1268  Renouf, op. cit., 108.

1269  Lacau, op. cit., 48.

1270  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 261.

1271  Ibid., 229.

1272  Faulkner, op, cit., 61.

1273  Ibid., 168.

1274  Pyramid Text 804.

1275  Pyramid Text 1375.

1276  Pyramid Text 262.

1277  Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, 210.

1278  Pyramid Text 996.

1279  Pyramid Texts 1292-93.

1280  Faulkner, op. cit., 232.

1281  Ibid., 237.

1282  Pyramid Text 1100.

 

1283  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 108.

1284  Pyramid Text 1087.

1285  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 594.

1286  Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods, 27.

1287  Ibid,. 21-27.

1288  Pyramid Text 1297.

1289  Op. cit., 19-20.

1290  Pyramid Text 373.

1291  Piankoff, The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 118.

1292  Pyramid Text 310.

1293  Frankfort, op. cit,. 27.

1294  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 87.

1295  Ibid., 583.

1296  Ibid,. 72.

1297  Pyramid Text 901-2.

1298  Pyramid Text 263.

1299  Pyramid Text 33.

1300 Piankofff, Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 51. 1301 Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 324. 1302  Pyramid Text 406.

1303  Pyramid Text 666.

1304  Pyramid Text 234.

1305  Op. cit., 101.

1306 Like the Egyptian Horus and Set the Babylonian gates of the right and left are “the twin fighters.” Sayce, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, 492; Jastrow, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 285.

1307  Wensinck, “The Ideas of the Western Semites,” 64.

1308  Agrawala, The Thousand Syllabled Speech, 106.

1309  Briffault, op. cit., Vol. III, 62, 163.

1310  Cook, op. cit., 49.

1311  Wensinck, “The Ideas of the Western Semites,” 169.

1312  Clifford, op. cit., 49.

1313  Briffault, op. cit., 192.

1314  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 157; Budge, From Fetish to God in Ancient Egypt, 409

1315  Piankoff, The Litany of Re, 24.

1316  Ibid., 13.

1317  Renouf, op. cit., 107.

1318  Faulkner, op. cit., 243.

1319  Hassan, Hymnes Religieux du Moyen Empire, 72.

1320  Conrad, The Horn and the Sword, 102.

 

1321  Ibid., 39.

1322  Ibid., 38.

1323  Gelling, The Chariot of the Sun, 81-82; Bailey, The God-Kings and the Titans, 192;

1324  Whitney, Atharva Veda, Vol. II, 547.

1325  Campbell, Occidental Mythology, 204-5; Briffault, op. cit., Vol. III, 191.

1326  Brown, Researches into the Origins of the Primitive Constellations, Vol. II, 183; Cook, op. cit., Vol. III, 554.

1327  Op. cit., Vol. I, 3n.

1328  Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, 88.

1329  Piankoff, Tomb of Ramesses VI, 125.

1330  Piankoff, Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 6.

1331 “Concerning the Horned Cap of the Mesopotamian Gods,” 319. See Hans Henning Van Der Osten, op. cit., fig. 22, no. 114, 116, 128, 153, 168.

1332  Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, xii.

1333  Jeremias, op. cit., 99, fig. 70.

1334  Conrad, The Horn and the Sword, 89.

1335  Whitney, op. cit., Vol. II, 714.

1336  Darmesteter, The Zend Avesta, Part II, 237.

1337  Bleeker, Hathor and Thoth, 48.

1338  Pyramid Text 705.

1339  Piankoff, The Wandering of the Soul, 10.

1340  Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, 149.

1341  Kramer, The Sacred Marriage Rite, 59.

1342  Sayce, op. cit., 256.

1343  Eggeling, Satapatha-Brahamna II, Part II, 33.

1344  Pyramid Text 389.

1345  Piankoff, Litany of Re, 26.

1346  Pyramid Text 280, in Piankoff, The Pyramid of Unas.

1347  Pyramid Text 282-83.

1348  Newberry, “Two Cults of the Old Kingdom,” 24ff.

1349  Op. cit., fig. 26.

1350  Faulkner, op. cit., 148.

1351  Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 99.

1352  Brown, op. cit., Vol. I, 56.

1353  Lenormant, Les Origines, Vol. I, 116.

1354 Ibid.

1355  Uno Holmberg, Siberian Mythology, 331-2.

1356  Wensinck, “The Ocean in the Literature of the Western Semites,” 3.

1357  Perry, Lord of the Four Quarters, 182.

1358  Piankoff, Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 84.

 

1359  Renouf, op. cit., 114-15.

1360  Mackenzie, The Migration of Symbols, 18.

1361  Pyramid Text 425.

1362 Pyramid Text 1266. Another text reads: “See among whom this King stands, the horns on his head being those of two wild bulls, for you are a black ram, the son of a black ewe, whom a white ewe bore.” Pyramid Text 252. In this hymn one discerns the two primary forms of the cosmic twins. The twins, as the two “wild” or fighting bull, are simply aspects of a singular horned god, whose horns alternately face opposing directions. But the twins also have to do with a circle half light and half shadow, and this bisected enclosure is the womb of the great gods birth. Hence he is “the son of a black ewe, whom a white ewe bore.”

1363 Lenormant, Les Origines, Vol. I, 114. In the symbolism of the Hindu Rig Veda it is the universal Bull and Cow who together compose the primeval womb. They “are like two inverted bowls uniting to form a common womb,” writes Agrawala. Thousand Syllabled Speech, 106.

1364  Op. cit., Vol. II, 495.

1365  Cited in Ibid.

1366 Ibid.

1367  Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 654.

1368  Langdon, op. cit., 106.

1369  Brown, Eradinus: River and Constellation, 12.

1370  Brown, Researches, Vol I, 39.

1371  Philippi, The Kojiki, 115.

1372  Whitney, op. cit., Vol. I, 227.

1373  Dixon, Oceanic Mythology, 20.

1374  Melville, Children of the Rainbow, 37.

1375  Alexander, North American Mythology, 52.

1376  Winkler, Rock Drawings of Southern Egypt, no. 17, 22, and inset, pl. xxxiii; Piankoff, Tomb of Ramesses VI, 153.

1377  Campbell, Oriental Mythology, 69-70.

1378  Jeremias, op. cit., 243.

1379  Pyramid Text 792.

1380  Pyramid Text 1433.

1381  Faulkner, op. cit., 279.

1382  A Dissertation on the Cabiri, Vol I, 177-78.

1383  Op. cit., 576.

1384  Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, citing a text from the Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon.

1385  Faulkner, op. cit., 149.

1386  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 488.

1387  Ibid., 411.

1388  Vanderburgh, Sumerian Hymns from Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum, 44.

1389  Compare Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 83.

1390  Pyramid Text.

1391  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 443, citing the Book of the Dead, Chapter LXVI.

1392  Piankoff, Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 72.

 

1393  Lacau, op. cit., 33.

1394  Piankoff, Wandering of the Soul, 27.

1395  Budge, From Fetish to God, 401.

1396  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 250. 1397 Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 410. 1398  Ibid., 398.

1399  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 239.

1400  Renouf, op. cit., 86.

1401  Ibid., 193.

1402  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 97, 135, 515, etc.

1403  Renouf, op. cit., 131.

1404  Pyramid Text 303.

1405  Budge, Osiris: the Egyptian Religion of Resurrection, Vol. I, 118.

1406  Op. cit., 61.

1407  Ibid., 60, 89.

1408  Faber, Origins, Vol. III, 24-27.

1409  Kramer, The Sacred Marriage Rite, 59, 64.

1410  Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 655.

1411  Faber, Origins Vol. I, 330, 385; Vol. III, 43, 63.

1412  MacCulloch, Eddic Mythology, 275.

1413  A Dissertation, Vol. I, 106.

1414  Faber, Origins, Vol. I, 330, 363, 384.

1415  Ibid., Vol. III, 28-33.

1416  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 153.

1417 Faber, Origins, Vol. I, 330; Vol. III, 30, 230. So also does the world navel appear in the form of a ship. Cook, op. cit., Vol. I, 355ff.;

1418  Faber, Origins, Vol. III, 222-27, 40-41, 89ff.

1419  Ibid., Vol. II, 263.

1420  Kerenyi, Asklepios, 5, fig. 3.

1421 Piankoff, Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 66. 1422 Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 273. 1423  A Dissertation, Vol. I, 177-78.

1424  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 13.

1425  Gragg, The Kes Temple Hymn, 168.

1426 Ibid.

1427 Faber gives several examples of ship-temples from India, Italy, and Ireland. Origins, Vol. II, 288-89. 1428 O’Neill, Night of the Gods, 585; see references in Nibley, “Tenting, Toll, and Taxing,” 602, note 19. 1429  Origins, Vol. I, 195; see plate I, fig. 11, 22.

1430  Ibid., 192; Guenon, Le Roi du Monde, 92, note 4.

 

1431  Piankoff, Wandering of the Soul, 14.

1432  Ibid., 28.

1433  Pyramid Text 124.

1434  O’Neill, op. cit., 820.

1435 Ibid.

1436  Neumann, op. cit., 256.

1437  Piankoff, Litany of Re, 64; Pyramid Texts 437, 1185.

1438  Asiatic Researches, Vol. III, 134.

1439  MacCulloch, Eddic Mythology, 157.

1440  Faber, Origins, Vol. III, 91-92, 177.

1441  Pyramid Text 336.

1442  Budge, The Egyptian jBook of the Dead, 230.

1443  Op. cit., 117, note 1.

1444  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 297.

1445 Faulkner, op.cit., 186. The close connection of the ship and the Mount of Glory is apparent in another hymn from the same texts: “The Great Ones who are in the Mount of Glory appear, the Followers of the Lords of all rejoice, the crews and servants of the bark are glad, and those who are in the Mount of Glory are happy when they see you in this dignity of  yours.” Ibid., 39.

1446  Pyramid Text 710-11.

1447  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 478.

1448  Faulkner, op. cit., 261.

1449 Renouf, op. cit., 166. A widespread association of the ship and the axis-pillar is noted by Cirlot: “ . . . Many primitive peoples place ships on the end of a pole or on the roof of a house . . . all these forms, then, represent the axis valley- mountain, or the symbolism of verticality and the idea of height. An obvious association here is with all the symbols of the world-axis.” A Dictionary of Symbols, 295.

1450  Origins, Vol. II, 20.

1451  Ibid, 382.

1452 Coomaraswamy, “Symbolism of the Dome,” 18. The mast of the cosmic ship of Life coincides “with the vertical axis of the house and the axle-tree of the chariot,” writes Coomaraswamy. Ibid., 11.

1453  Sjöberg and Bergmann, The Collection of the Sumerian Temple Hymns, 21, 67, 151.

1454  Origins, Vol. III, 205.

1455  Newberry, “The Petty-Kingdom of the Harpoon and Egypts Earliest Mediterranean Port,” 18n.

1456  Op. cit., 252.

1457  Ibid., 251.

1458  Pyramid Texts 1981-82

1459  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 507.

1460  Renouf, op. cit., 259.

1461  Origins Vol II; see plate I, fig. 16.

1462  Suryakants, The Flood Legend in Sanskrit Literature, 4.

1463  Quoted in Perry, op. cit., 138.

1464  From Fetish ot God, 328.

 

1465  Op. cit., 62.

1466  Op. cit., 231.

1467  Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, 52.

1468  Ibid., 53; Pyramid Text 1431.

1469 Thus the dead king Pepi “lives with his ka; he [the ka] expels the evil that is before Pepi, he removes the evil that is behind Pepi, like the boomerangs of the lord of Letoplis [the cosmic city], which remove the evil that is before him and expel the evil that is behind him.” Pyramid Text 908, translated in Breasted, op. cit., 53.

1470  Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, 212

1471  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 71.

1472  Ibid., 94.

1473  Ibid., 376.

1474  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, 388.

1475  Ibid., 86.

1476  Pyramid Text 160.

1477  Pyramid Text 151.

1478  Pyramid Texts 1653-54.

1479  Pyramid Text 212.

1480  Op. cit., 232.

1481  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 93.

1482  Lacau, op. cit., 31.

1483  Hassan, op. cit., 12.

1484  Newberry, “Two Cults of the Old Kingdom,” 28.

1485  Piankoff, The Pyramid Text of Unas, 43.

1486  The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 21.

1487  Ibid., 21, quoting Pyramid Text 616.

1488  Ibid., 114.

1489  Faulkner, op. cit., 54.

1490  Ibid., 83.

1491  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 4.

1492  Pyramid Text 258.

1493  Erman, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, 59.

1494  Renouf, op. cit., 24.

1495  Piankoff, op. cit., The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 19.

1496  Frankfort, op. cit., 67.

1497  Pyramid Text 847.

1498  Pyramid Text 1405.

1499  Darmesteter, op. cit., Part II, 146; Perry, op. cit., 138-39.

1500  Énel, Les Origines de la Genèse et l’Enseignement des Temples de l’Ancienne Égypte, 211.

1501  Piankofff, The Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 125.

 

1502  Clark, op. cit., 233.

1503  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 587.

1504  Budge, From Fetish to God, 401.

1505  The reader will have no difficulty seeing that the Aker glyph simply translates the image into leonine form.

1506  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 71.

1507 Ibid.

1508 Ibid.

1509  Frankfort, op. cit., 69.

1510  Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, 37.

1511  Ibid., 39.

1512  Ibid., 38.

1513  Pyramid Text 1570-71.

1514  Pyramid Text 1353.

1515  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 17.

1516  Pyramid Text 1443.

1517  On the connection of Imdugud with Ninurta, see Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz, 4.

1518  Gaster, Myth , Legend and Custom in the Old Testament, 5.

1519  Melville, op. cit., 32.

1520  Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews Vol. I, 28-29; Graves and Patai, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis, 55.

1521  Cook, op. cit., Vol. I, 342, citing Orphic Frag. 49, 3.

1522  Agrawala, Sparks from the Vedic Fire, 52-55.

1523  Frankfort, op. cit., 37.

1524  Ibid., 143.

1525  Reymond, The Mythical Origin of the Egyptian Temple, 16.

1526  Ibid., 120-21.

1527  Evelyn-White, Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, 459.

1528  Piankoff, Litany of Re, 54.

1529  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 368.

1530  Op. cit., 173.

1531  Budge, I 74.

1532  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 437.

1533  Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 122; Lenormant, Les Origines, Vol.I, 112ff.

1534  Gelling, The Chariot of the Sun, 120ff.; Magoun, The Kalevala, 37-38; O’Neill, op. cit., vol. II, 1,009, 1,012.

1535  Pyramid Text 595.

1536  Pyramid Text 1429.

1537  Pyramid Text 1176.

1538  Pyramid Text 1377.

1539  Piankoff, Shrines of Tut-Ankh-Amon, 46.

 

1540  Pyramid Text 1370.

1541  Pyramid Text 976.

1542  Pyramid Text 1742

1543  Op. cit., 39.

1544  O’Neill, op. cit., 220.

1545  Pyramid Text 389.

1546  Pyramid Text 2243.

1547  Sjöberg and Bergmann, op. cit., 99.

1548  Albright, “The Goddess of Life and Wisdom,” 268, note 3.

1549  Van Buren, Symbols of the Gods in Mesopotamian Art, 96-99.

1550  Faulkner, op. cit., 68.

1551  Pyramid Text 312.

1552  Pyramid Text 1254.

1553  Budge, The Papyrus of Ani, 32.

1554  Reymond, op. cit., 68.

1555  Clark, op. cit., 67.

1556  Mariette, Denderah, 1, 55a.

1557  Roys, The Book of the Chilam Balam, 131.

1558  Ibid., 105.

1559  Sayce, op. cit., 238.

1560  Albright, “The Mouth of the Rivers,” 193.

1561  See, for example, the discussion in Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 290.

1562  Briffault, op. cit., Vol. I, 130.

1563  Ibid., 131.

1564  Roys, op. cit., 94.

1565  Combe, op. cit., 99.

1566  Coomaraswamy, Elements of Buddhist Iconography, 19-20.

1567  Ibid., 17-18.

1568  Morez and Schhubert, Der Gott auf der Blume, 38.

1569 Faber, Origins, Vol. II, 217; vol. I, 19. In Egyptian ritual there is also a fascinating relationship of the plant of life and  the outstretched arms of heaven (the Ka). Pyramid Text 544a has the king proclaiming himself to be the “flower which issued from the Ka.”

1570  Budge, Gods, Vol. I, 413, 439.

1571  See example in Budge, Egyptian Book of the Dead, 29.

1572  Clark, op. cit., 163.

1573  Quoted in O’Neill, op. cit., 467.

1574  Bhawe, The Soma Hymns of the Rig Veda, 82.

1575  Coomaraswamy, Elements of Buddhist Iconography, 89, note 139.

1576  Quoted in Ibid., 55.

 

1577  O’Neill, op. cit., 400.

1578  Ibid., 290.

1579  Combe, op. cit., 11; Langdon, Semitic Mythology, 91.

1580  Langdon, op. cit., 27.

1581  Pyramid Text 240.

1582  Lenormant, Les Origines Vol. I, 129ff.

1583  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 476.

1584  Patterns 372.

1585  Eggeling, op. cit., Part I, 86.

1586  Ibid., 213, note 2.

1587  “The Ideas of the Western Semites,” 10.

1588  Ibid., 11.

1589 Ibid.

1590 Schwabe, Archetype und Tierkreis, 377ff. 1591 Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 217. 1592  Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, 76.

1593  Ibid., 37.

1594 Ibid.

1595 Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 85. 1596 Quoted in Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, 30. 1597 Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 314. 1598  Budge, The Papyrus of Ani, 27.

1599  Piankoff, Mythological Papyri, 93.

1600  Ibid., 79.

1601 “Hail Re! His resting place is the Tuat; what he traverses is the Beautiful Amentet.” Piankoff, Pyramid of Unas, 30.  “The disk is in the Tuat, the disk rests in Amentet.” Piankoff, Tomb of Ramesses VI, 376. “The souls of Re in Amentet are exalted, and in the zone of the Tuat the souls . . . cry out in their songs of exultation unto the soul of Re who dwelleth therein . . . O yet Hetepu gods, grant yet that I may enter into the Tuat, and let me make a way into the beautiful Amentet.” Budge, Egyptian Book of the Dead, 612-13.

1602  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 387.

1603  Piankoff, The Tomb of Ramesses VI, 76.

1604  Pyramid Text 1038.

1605  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 516-17.

1606  Op. cit., 19.

1607  “Nut encompasses and ‘is’ heaven and earth,” states Neumann. Op. cit., 223.

1608  Piankoff, Litany of Re, 169.

1609  Lacau, op. cit., 37.

1610  Budge, The Egyptian Book of the dead, 85.

1611  Ibid., 80.

1612  Coffin Text 118; see also spell 302.

 

1613  Op. cit., 1-3.